DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters
are the property of Twentieth Century Fox, Mutant Enemy, Paramount Studios, Inc
and Viacom. The story contents are the creation and property of Djinn and are
copyright (c) 2004 by Djinn. This story is Rated PG-13.
The Lost Years: Hellspawn
by Djinn
Kirk stared out his office window,
frowning deeply. He was sure he'd
forgotten something...again.
"Careful. Your face might freeze that way."
He swiveled in his chair, saw
Lori standing at his doorway. "One
of the lies our mothers told us?"
Her smiled died. "No.
Just a saying. A stupid
one." She stepped into his office,
carefully, as if she was unsure of her welcome.
"Faces don't freeze. Unless
they get cold enough."
He didn't answer, just
watched her as she came toward him. He
was more sure than ever that he was forgetting something, was suddenly hit by
an odd sense of vertigo, then got a flash of the carrying case he'd made for
his sword.
And the padd. The padd that Carl had made him take--the
padd that Lori wanted. He forced his
features to not change; no new expression must cross his face or she would know
it was here.
He didn't know how he knew
that, but he did. He had to keep the
padd safe. Protect whatever secrets it
held. Secrets he needed to look at. Up until now, he'd forgotten the padd every
time he entered his office.
"I ran into your
slayer." Lori put an almost mocking
emphasis on the possessive.
"And yet you
live."
Lori shrugged. "She's not that scary." She leaned forward, her eyes catching and
holding his. "She's been bitten,
you know."
"I'm aware of
that." He leaned back, an
unconscious reaction to her nearness.
"Kinky. And dangerous."
"I'm sure you're not one
to throw stones on either of those scores."
Lori sighed. "You're making this difficult,
Jim."
"Making what difficult,
Lori? I don't even know what you
want?" He studied her for a moment.
When she didn't say anything, he said, "Is this the approach you used with
Chris? Because I can't imagine she'd
tolerate it for long."
"She didn't." Lori's look turned leering. "She's a great kisser."
He tried to hide his shock,
knew he failed when Lori's leer turn mocking.
"Yes, she is," he
said as evenly as he could.
She eased up on the
mocking. "We're all on the same
side, Jim."
He wondered if she'd used
that line on Carl. "Sure we
are."
"We are. Your slayer has something we want. She listens to you. Convince her to work with us."
"Convince me why I
should."
"Because we all love
Starfleet, and we'd all die to protect the Federation. And if we work together, then maybe none of
us will ever have to die for it."
"Is that a threat?"
She frowned. "No."
He looked away.
She leaned back. "Jim.
It's not." She looked down
then back at him, seemed to be weighing how much to say. Finally, she leaned in again, said very
softly, "Kirsu, Jim. It's the
ultimate platform for peace."
"For peace?" He leaned in, shaking his head. "Peace how? And with whom? And what's Kirsu?"
She smiled, as if she didn't believe
for a moment that he didn't know what Kirsu was. "Peace for the Federation. For those who want peace. Against those who don't."
"Are you being
deliberately vague?"
"We could wage peace anywhere,
anytime." Her eyes seemed to become
unfocused for a moment, then she stood up.
"I have to go. Nogura needs
me."
"Who needs communicators
when there's magic?"
She shot him a hard
look. "You don't understand
anything. Don't think your little magics
give you any insight into what he's capable of, or what I'm capable of."
He could feel his lips
tighten. He bit back the angry retort
that he understood all too well what she and Nogura were capable of. He had one less friend because of their magic.
Not that he had any proof of
that.
Yet.
She touched his hand, and he
felt a jolt. He jerked away; his skin
stung where she had touched him.
"If you came here to get
me to help you with Chris, you've got a damned odd approach, Lori." He stood up.
"I don't trust you."
"I know. But, Jim, you must know how valuable you
are. We'd never hurt you." She smiled, this time the look seemed to only
hold simple affection and respect.
He didn't smile back.
She shook her head and spun
on her heel, heading quickly for the door.
"She doesn't trust me either.
But she trusts you," she said, not turning around. "Work on her."
He waited a few moments,
afraid that she would walk back into the room the moment he headed for the
carrying case. Finally, he got up and
walked over to where he'd hung it. The
thing seemed to shimmer slightly. For some
time, he'd forgotten about it. Why was
he remembering it now?
He opened the case, reached
down carefully and retrieved the padd.
He grabbed enough padds to hide Carl's among them and headed out of his
office. He had a feeling he shouldn't
look at it in his office--they might be watching him.
He half expected Lori to be
waiting for him in the corridor, hand outstretched for the padd. But she was gone. He hurried out of his wing, heading toward
Starfleet Medical. He needed to look at
the padd somewhere that she and Nogura wouldn't think to look for him. He was betting that while they might be
watching Chris after hours, they probably weren't paying much attention to her
when she was leading her non-slayer life.
As long as he didn't call her on the comm channel, he'd be okay.
Still, her office was too
dangerous a place to try to read the padd in case he was wrong. They needed to find someplace out of the way
to look at the information Carl might have died for. But first Kirk needed to find her. He slowed at the reception desk, saw the
young man on duty look up in anticipation.
Kirk waved him off, walking into the busy main hallway.
Where would Chris be at this
hour of the afternoon? And could he find
her? Could he call her the way Nogura
had called Lori? Or would that be too
dangerous? He didn't know how to shield,
much less broadcast just to her. And he
had no idea where she was.
But he'd found her
before. If he wanted to badly enough, he
could do it again. He ducked into an
empty exam room and closed his eyes, thinking of Chris, of her smile, and her
more-frequently-seen frown. He thought
of how her blue eyes looked in the sunshine.
And how they turned a stormy gray at night, how they seemed dark and
mysterious. And beautiful. He sighed.
"Chris, where are
you?" he whispered.
He had a flash of her in the
immunology department, talking to another doctor. He hurried out of the exam room, took the
elevator up, suddenly wondering how he'd known it had been the immunology
department.
Magic. He smiled, hoping he was right. As he walked into the immunology anteroom, he
saw her through a window in the door that separated him from the labs. Her back was to him.
"Chris," he
whispered, thinking it as hard as he could, sure that he could reach her.
She turned around. Her smile was immediate. He wondered if he treasured the expression
because she smiled so rarely. Or was he
just lost? Lost for a woman he could
never have?
A woman he could find simply
by thinking of her?
She turned back to the other
doctor, said something and then turned and hurried down the hall. He saw another bright smile light up her
face, felt his own grin grow larger.
No. He wasn't lost. Not at all.
"Jim?"
"I need to look at
this." He showed her the padd,
hidden among the others. "Is there
someplace we can go? Somewhere busy
where we can fade into the noise?
Somewhere they won't be watching?"
She didn't ask who they were,
just thought for a moment, then nodded.
"I know where."
"Lead on," he said,
following her out and down the hall to a busy stairwell. They walked down a few flights, then she led
him down another hallway and into the adjoining building.
He started to chuckle. Why hadn't he thought of this?
She smiled slyly. "Well, can you think of a busier place
than the Academy library?"
"Have I ever told you
that you're brilliant, Doctor?"
She laughed. "No, Admiral, I don't believe you
have." She nodded toward an empty carrel. "Come on." As they sat down, she said softly, "It's
so odd to be called doctor."
He nodded. "I know.
Admiral still sounds like it should be anybody else but me." He could feel a frown beginning. "But then you wanted to be a doctor,
you're moving forward."
She watched him, waiting for
him to finish. He waved her off. Now wasn't the time. He busied himself with accessing the padd's
data.
"You'd give anything to
have the ship back, wouldn't you? To be
a captain again?"
"Not
anything." He turned to look at
her. "But almost anything."
She nodded, touched him on
the arm. "I'm sorry."
He shook his head. "Moot point now, Chris." He watched as the padd tried to display. Nothing was coming up.
"It's blank, Jim."
"That's
impossible." He leaned in, told the
padd to de-encrypt and display the data.
"Nothing to
display." The message seemed an act
of defiance.
He shook his head, leaned in
and studied the total lack of results.
He'd never actually taken the protection spell off the case, maybe the
padd was still affected? Not that he was
sure how he'd set the spell, much less how to take it off.
"Jim?"
"What's the opposite of
protect?"
"Endanger?"
"Something less negative." He exhaled loudly. "I protect you. I...you.
What is the word?"
"Release?"
Yes. That was good. "Release," he whispered to the padd.
The screen was suddenly
filled with data.
"Wow. You did that?" She shot him a look of admiration.
He felt a grin starting. "I guess so. And I have no idea in hell how to do it
again. I can't believe it's just the
word."
"It's not. I said it and nothing happened." She smiled at him. "Intent.
That indomitable Kirk will."
Her expression grew soft.
"And magic. Real magic,
Jim." She smiled again, then turned
to the screen. "Now, what do we
have here?"
They ran through the
data. It was as Carl had said. His science team had seemed to be searching
subspace for something very specific. It
was all there if you knew what you were looking for. And even if you didn't, it still looked damned
odd. Kirk turned to Chris, saw that she
was staring at the readings, her eyes narrowed.
"Kirsu," he said
softly.
She nodded. "They want to use it."
"I know. Lori came to see me just before I came
here."
"They'll ensure the
peace with it. Or so they
say." She shook her head. "And
once they've ensured it, then who will they turn their power against?"
Like the Tantalus Field that his
alter ego had used against his enemies in the mirror universe. Such a powerful weapon in the wrong
hands. Or even in the right hands once
there were no more enemies to fight.
They couldn't let Nogura have
Kirsu.
"It's theirs, Jim. The slayers.
It belongs to them now."
He nodded. "I know, Chris. We won't give away Kirsu." He closed down the padd and whispered, "Protect." He felt a shiver as something flowed out of
him into the padd. He thought that this
time he could probably wear it around his neck and Lori wouldn't notice it.
"But they don't need to
know that we're not going to play."
Her look was deadly serious.
"No. Let them think we might. It's safer for everyone."
She nodded. "And they aren't the only ones that want
it. Silver does too. For the watchers." She shook her head. "At this point, David's the only one who
doesn't want it."
"Seen him lately?"
Kirk said as casually as he could.
She laughed. "Since I saw you at dinner on Saturday,
you mean?" She leaned in, touched
his hand. "No. I haven't.
Maybe he's lost interest in me?"
Kirk let his eyebrows
rise. "I doubt it. I wouldn't if I were David." His hand tingled where Chris touched him. It was a good feeling, nothing like the jolt
of Lori's touch. He thought of her odd
comment. "So, Lori mentioned that
you were somewhat skilled in the kissing department."
She looked away.
"You're blushing,
Chris." He turned his hand, twined
his fingers with hers, a possessive move that he knew he should resist. "Something you want to tell me?"
"Just power games. Pack behavior." She shrugged.
"It was nothing."
"Sweetheart, I've never
seen wolves kiss."
They both seemed to realize
what he'd called her at the same time.
He looked away, but not before he saw a small smile cross her face.
"You've obviously been
watching the wrong wolves, my friend."
"Obviously." He squeezed her hand, thanking her for taking
them back to the ground he'd been the one to insist was safer. Friends--not sweethearts. He let go of her hand. "So what's next?"
She frowned. "I need to talk to LaVelle...and take
her something. But I need to get to her
from someplace that isn't crawling with watchers and werewolves."
"Weasel could probably
shield you."
"I don't know him. And neither do you--at least, not well enough
to trust with this." She smiled
gently as she shook her head, taking the sting out of her words. She seemed to think of something. "But Tolvar already knows about the
Kirsu slayers. He might be able to help."
"Yes, he might. He seems powerful. Weasel speaks highly of him."
"He just needs to help
me find a place they can't spy on me."
She began to smile evilly. "On
the other hand, I have the bodyguard from hell.
David isn't going to like anyone else following me. Odd to think that for once I'm safer at night
with him around then during the day."
She shot Kirk a funny look.
"Why aren't you arguing?"
He took a deep breath. "I sort of ran into him."
"And it just slipped
your mind? Are you insane?" Her voice was rising, causing the cadet at
the next carrel to glare at them.
"David could hurt you and I'd never--"
He stopped her with a gentle
finger on her lips. "That's exactly
why he won't hurt me. Because you'd
never." He shook his head. "If you go up against him, he'll fight
you. But for now, he'll leave you
alone. And me too. And yes, I agree that he'll protect you."
"What did he say to
you?"
"It's not important
right now. Do you want me to keep Lori
occupied tonight?"
Chris' eyebrows nearly
disappeared into her hair.
He laughed, earning them
another glare from the cadet. "I
didn't mean like that."
"I hope not. Besides, she'll only be suspicious of your
timing." She seemed to sigh. Then she leaned in and said softly, "I
didn't tell you the other night, but Emma told me that Nogura--his family, I
mean--was involved in Kirsu's manifestation in our dimension."
Kirk frowned. Why were they keeping secrets from each
other?
She seemed to be reading his
mind. She shook her head slowly. "We're telling each other now, Jim. Don't think of them as secrets. Just as things we haven't had a chance to say
yet."
"All right. But we can't let things go unsaid for too
long or they will become secrets."
He thought of Spock, how their friendship had been torn apart--all
because of the secret he'd kept from his best friend.
She still seemed to be on the
same wavelength. "It's always about
him, isn't it?" She got up, put her
hand on his shoulder. "I have to
get back to rounds."
He reached up, laid his hand
on top of hers. "Be careful
tonight."
She nodded. "I always am."
He looked up at her, saw that
she was unconsciously touching the bite marks that had healed but left a scar
on her neck. He touched his own
reminders of being bitten and shot her a wry grin. Quite the pair. He wasn't sure either of them knew how to be
careful.
"See you," she
said, easing her hand away from his.
"Let me know when you
get back."
She nodded, walked away
toward the doors they'd come in by. He
waited a few moments, then walked through the library and headed back to
Command.
-----------------------
Christine doubled back for
the third time as she headed down toward the piers and Tolvar. Tonight she had to be sure that no one was
following her. She turned on every
slayer sense she had, focused on anything that seemed the least bit
unusual. It took her a very long time to
cover the distance. To the casual
observer she might have seemed a bit erratic, but she didn't care.
Finally satisfied that there
was no one following her, she hurried down to the water. Tolvar was reading cards for a customer when
she arrived. He looked up at her and
nodded slightly, then went back to his reading.
She ducked into the alley, waiting in the shadows, staying out of sight.
"It's been a long time,
Slayer." Tolvar stretched as he
walked into the alley. "Weasel
tells me your friend is even more powerful than we thought. And he learns quickly."
That didn't surprise her but
she hadn't come to talk about Jim. "I
need your help."
He leaned against the
wall. "What can a humble fortune
teller do for you?"
"I need to talk to our
mutual slayer friends."
"Ah." He frowned.
"I don't believe I know how to reach them."
She smiled. "Oh, I know how to reach them. I just need a private place to place the
call. One where I won't be
disturbed...or observed. Can you help me?"
He nodded. He took her arm and guided her down the
alley. Taking a key out of his pocket,
he opened one of the doors. It was a
storeroom, a variety of mystical objects were on the shelves. She recognized some of the things he sold
when he wasn't reading fortunes. She
made a face. The smell of incense in the
small room was overwhelming.
He smiled. "It's nauseating, I know, but it hides
the smell of other things." He
pointed down to the door frame, where a strange symbol had been carved. She knelt down, dipped her finger in the wet
substance that had been rubbed on it. It
felt oily, but it smelled like--she turned her face away, making another
face. "Urine?"
"Gremlin urine. The best way for a quick and easy
barrier. And difficult to fake. The smell is quite distinctive, don't you
think?"
She nodded and took the
moistened wipe he handed her. She was
surprised that the smell came off, but whatever was on the towel was more
powerful than monster pee.
"I need a new line of
work," she said as she handed him back the towel.
He laughed. "Here.
Bring it back when you're done."
He dropped the key in her hand and left.
The door locked behind him.
She reverently touched
Laura's portal ring, which she'd jammed onto her little finger. It was one of the five lost by the Noguras--ancient
now. Ancient and dangerous. But necessary. Christine had never tried to use it. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do.
Jim had said that Weasel told
him to keep it simple when he did magic.
It was probably good advice for her too.
She touched the stone, and said
softly, "Kirsu. Take me
there."
Nothing happened.
"Damn it." Would it have killed LaVelle to give her
better instructions? She probably had
deliberately not told her some crucial step.
Christine and she were going to have a little talk when she figured out
how to get to Kirsu.
A portal appeared in front of
her.
Christine smiled as she
stepped in. Whatever worked. She couldn't call up Kirsu, but she had no
problem calling up her annoying fellow slayer--LaVelle didn't even have to be
in the same dimension to piss her off.
The opening closed, and a
surge of panic filled her. She felt as
if the space jerked, and she lost her balance and fell down into a crouch,
trying to catch her breath. She was being
suffocated in this dank, cramped place--
She forced herself to breathe
slowly. This wasn't the sewers. She was safe.
She was fine.
"Kirsu," she
muttered over and over until the portal opened and she threw herself out,
landing on soft grass. She pushed
herself up, feeling warm sunshine beating down on her. The air smelled of green herbs and a distant
shore.
"Who are you?" A young girl backed away from her.
"It's okay. I'm Christine. I'm here to see LaVelle."
"It's all right, Magda. She's a friend." LaVelle walked down the stairs, her face not
at all welcoming. "Not my friend,
mind you."
"How've you
been?" Christine walked past the
younger slayer, invading LaVelle's personal space. "You miss me?"
"Not at all." LaVelle moved even closer.
Neither blinked, neither
moved. Christine realized that they
probably looked immensely silly to the young girl watching them. Some role models.
She took a step back and
walked around LaVelle. "Can I come
in?" she smirked as she bounded up the stairs and into the house.
She heard LaVelle call out, "Make
yourself at home."
She turned around, waited for
the other slayer to catch up.
"Actually, I've brought something home." She pulled the amulet out from under her
shirt, gently undid the clasp and slipped it off her silver chain. She handed the amulet to LaVelle, fastening
the chain back around her neck.
"What is it?"
"According to the
watchers, it's what keeps Kirsu tied to our dimension."
LaVelle glared at her. "The watchers? You asked them?"
Christine forced herself not to
snap. "No. They volunteered the information. They're trying to get me to work with
them." She touched the amulet's
main stone. "Two people have
already died for this. It's valuable and
too dangerous to keep in my dimension."
LaVelle stroked the
stone. "Does it work like the
rings?"
Christine shrugged. "Maybe if you're a magician--it was
sorcerers who made it. I think it's more
of a focus. Some kind of link between
the worlds."
LaVelle sighed. "I'm sick to death of magic. Orbs and amulets and links."
"Kirsu is magic. Are you sick of it?" Christine smiled grimly. "Because there are a lot of people who
would like to take it off your hands."
LaVelle shot her a look.
"If they try, it will be the last thing they ever do."
"It's easy to say that, LaVelle. But these are watchers. And powerful people in Starfleet. They have firepower--both conventional and
magical--at their beck and call. You
have to be careful. Stay here unless
it's absolutely necessary to leave."
"We won't let a slayer
die when we can save her."
Christine nodded. "I know.
Just don't take any extra chances, okay?"
"I might almost think
you care." LaVelle smiled, the
expression a bit friendlier than her usual glare.
"God knows why." Christine nodded at the amulet. "You have somewhere you can keep it
safe?"
LaVelle nodded. She led Christine into an adjoining room,
moved a carpet aside and lifted a trapdoor.
"This has been here since the time of Helene the founder."
"And Nogura the original
owner." At LaVelle's look,
Christine pointed up to the carvings that ran around the wall. "Kanji symbols. It's Japanese. Put there by Tachikawa and Nogura, the men
who conjured up the bridge to this place.
Don't forget that at the end of the day you're squatters."
LaVelle tossed her a
lightstick. "Fortunately,
possession is still nine-tenths of the law."
"At the moment, it's
ten-tenths, and there is no law here except what we make." Christine followed her down the steps. A small storeroom opened up into hallways
that ran both ways. "This runs
under the house?"
LaVelle nodded. "Comes out in two places. I guess your magicians felt a few bolt holes
might be a good addition to their magic?"
Christine nodded. "I've got to bolt. I don't want anyone to wonder where I've
gone." She hurried up the
stairs. "Don't tell anyone about
the amulet. Except Marion, I mean."
"Your will is my
command, your highness."
Christine turned. "You could say thank you. Or would it kill you?"
LaVelle's lips
tightened. "One of these days, you
and I are going to have to figure out who's the boss."
"Fine. One of these days we will. But not now.
We don't have time for this."
Christine turned her back on LaVelle, hurried upstairs, and touched her ring. She thought of the storeroom, the reek of
incense, the carved symbols. When the
portal opened, she stepped in and closed her eyes until she sensed the portal
opening again. She turned and dashed out; the portal closed behind her.
She looked at the ring. She felt safer with it close to her, but it
was too conspicuous to try to wear. She
couldn't continue to hide it in her apartment.
Maybe Jim could help her fnd a better way to hide it? A magical way?
She pulled the door shut
behind her and fished the key out of her pocket, handing it to Tolvar.
He smiled. "That was a quick call."
She made a face. "And LaVelle can still irritate
me."
"She's not so bad. If you'd just quit challenging her."
"Me?" Christine turned away. "I'm not the problem."
He laughed. "Of course not, my dear. Give my best to Emma, won't you?"
"You've never told her
about the slayers, have you?"
He shook his head.
"Why not? You and Emma seem close."
"We are. I love her dearly." He looked down. "But she is a watcher. You must never forget that. Not when it comes to our mutual
friends."
"Are you saying I can't
trust her?"
He shook his head. "She's a good woman. You can trust her in all things...except
this." He caught and held her gaze. "You already know that or you'd have
told her by now."
She smiled. "You're probably right. Thank you.
For everything."
He waved her away as a young
tourist wandered by. "Tell your
fortune, pretty lady?"
Christine walked quickly away
from the piers and back up toward her apartment. She kept looking around as she walked, not so
much for anyone following her, but for something, anything she could fight. Damn LaVelle.
Would it have killed her to be gracious for once?
Christine turned and walked
up the hill, realized she was heading for Jim's. He had told her to let him know she was back,
she might as well do it in person. She nodded
at the doorman, rode the elevator up, and walked to Jim's door. It suddenly struck her that she didn't even
know if he was alone. It also struck her
that she didn't care. She rang the
chime.
It took him so long to get
the door that she almost gave up.
He opened the door and smiled
when he saw her. "This is a
pleasant surprise."
She sniffed. Was that sulfur? "What are you doing?"
"Magic?" He pulled her in. "Weasel gave me an exercise to try at
home and I'm just not getting it."
She followed him into his
study where smoke was still swirling. He
had the windows open to air out the room.
"It's like a nightmare
chem lab."
"You're not
wrong." He shook his head. "I'm trying to make a ball of
fire."
"I was sort of kidding
about that whole throwing lightning bolts business." She grinned, touched his shirt where it was
singed. "Although it looks like you
got part of it."
He nodded, snuffing out the
incense that was burning around the room in the bowls of sand that held the
sticks upright. Without the incense's
sweet smell, the reek of sulfur intensified.
"So what have you
learned to do?"
"Well, I'm hell on
wheels with that protection spell. Of
course, it's only one word and a whole lot of fear, so that's not so
hard."
She smiled.
"I learned to ground
today." He shook his head. "It's like any power circuit
really. Only I have to think of myself
as the vessel it's passing through, which is not what I'd want to be if it were
real current."
"Did it work?"
He looked up at her as he dug
through the closet for something.
"Yeah, it did. It's strange
stuff, Chris. It's as if I always knew
how to do it; I just needed someone to remind me of that." He wrinkled his nose. "Big stinky sulfur balls
notwithstanding." He grinned and
pulled out a padded case that he tossed to her.
"I finished this finally. I
bet you forgot all about it."
She shot him a puzzled look
and opened the case, laughing as she pulled out her new, improved, folding
crossbow. "I had forgotten about
this." She assembled it quickly and
held it up. "I've missed this. Can we go kill something?"
"Bad day at the mystical
office, hon?" He was already walking
toward the door. "Come on. I'd love to let it air out for a
while." He pulled the door shut
behind them.
"LaVelle was her normal
charming self, so yeah, I'm a little tense." She shook her head. "But mission accomplished. Except..." She held out her finger. "Can you help me hide this?"
"Hide it?"
"Like you did the
padd. Only more so. I want it invisible."
He smiled. "I think that might take more power than
I have."
She grinned. "Use mine. I've got plenty."
"I can try. You want to wear it?" He touched her chain. "It might be safer on this? Easier to hide?"
When she nodded, he stepped
behind her and undid the chain. His
hands seemed to linger on her neck and she shivered.
"The ring?"
"Oh." She pulled it off and handed it to him.
He slid it onto the chain and
refastened it around her neck. Then he
sighed, "I'm not sure I can do this, Chris. Invisible?"
"Sure you
can." She wasn't sure why she did
it but she reached up for his right hand, pulled it down, and around her
waist. He moved closer, his hand on her
necklace. She set her hands on his,
pushing down slightly.
"Weasel says breath is
key." Jim began to breathe slowly. He pushed against her as he inhaled, pulled
away as he exhaled. She tried to synch
her breathing to his, but something was off.
"From here," he
said, as he pushed on her stomach.
"Not from your throat. Don't
move your shoulders. Keep your mouth
closed."
She leaned back against him
and closed her eyes, tried to breathe low from her stomach, from where his hand
pushed down on her. In and out and in
and out. She suddenly felt lightheaded,
felt her body moving in perfect time with his, their breaths joining as they
inhaled and exhaled. Without knowing why
she did it, she began to pause longer and longer after each exhale, not taking
a breath just sitting empty as she waited to breathe. Jim did the same thing, his hand moving a
bit, pulling her closer.
She felt an energy beginning
very low down and traveling up her belly into her lungs and up past her throat,
past her forehead, out the top of her head.
"Let it ground,"
she thought she heard, but she didn't know how Jim could have spoken when he
was breathing in such perfect rhythm with her.
The energy continued to flow
out of her and she let it go, imagined it pouring back into the ground, then rushing
back up through them, through their feet, their legs, their groins, back to
their bellies.
Jim grasped the
necklace. "Protect," he
whispered.
She felt a tingling begin
where the chain lay against her skin.
"Hide."
The tingling increased.
"By our will," he
whispered in her ear, and she echoed it back.
The tingling increased,
moving through her until she thought her legs would collapse. Jim's hand jerked against her and she lost the
rhythm of their breath, opening her eyes as she seemed to fall even though she
hadn't moved.
"I'm sorry," she
whispered.
"Why?" His lips touched her neck, so softly that if
she hadn't been so in tune with him she'd have never noticed it. "We did it, Chris." He turned her so she could see their reflection
in the window.
The necklace that she was
running her fingers over was invisible.
She smiled and turned to him.
His pupils were dilated. She thought her own probably were too.
"You're really
good."
"I had the slayer
booster pack." He grinned, then he
looked down where the necklace should have been. "But damn. We are good."
She laughed. Tried to come down from the place the magic
had sent her. She wanted to touch him so
badly. Needed to touch him, to hold him
and kiss--.
She grabbed the
crossbow. "I think we should go
now." She didn't wait for him to
follow, nearly ran out of the apartment.
He was right behind her,
pulling his sword case over his head..
"So you think there'll be lots of things to kill?"
She was obviously not the
only one who found doing magic together a powerful aphrodisiac.
----------------------------
Kirk breathed deeply, trying
to suck in as much as he could of the fresh night air. He felt as if every cell in his body was
boiling over, as if the only thing that could cool him down was the woman who
was hurrying ahead of him.
It had been one hell of a
spell. He'd have to ask Weasel what
exactly he and Chris had done. He had a
feeling it was probably not something he should have done with a woman he was
desperately trying to keep his hands off of.
He could still feel her pressed
tightly against him, her breath in perfect union with his. He'd felt her power bubbling up. Her energy was different. Not targeted, not focused. Just there.
For him to use if she let him.
And she'd given it freely.
When he'd touched the
necklace, he'd known there was no way they could fail. Together they were so powerful.
Together...god if only they could be--
But they couldn't. He was glad when they arrived at the
cemetery, hoped they'd run into a whole nest of vampires. He felt as if he could take them all on
himself. And still have more tension to
work off.
She slowed and turned to
him. "You okay?"
"I will be. How about you?"
She shook her head, a slow
grin beginning. "My god, Jim. That was better than some sex I've had."
"I know. Imagine how good sex would be." He was instantly sorry he'd said that.
She just laughed. "I'm having a hard time thinking about
anything but. Hopefully we'll find some
big nasties to fight. Sublimation is a
good thing." She loaded her
crossbow.
"No stake?"
She patted her jacket
pocket. "Never leave home without
one."
He patted his pocket
too.
"Good boy." She tugged at his jacket and he let her pull
him to her. Her look was suddenly much
less playful. "Jim. I want you so --"
"--I smell food,"
something yelled behind them.
Her smile was feral; he
wondered if his own mirrored it.
They turned as one, as if
they were still in the hold of the spell.
The vampire looked confused as they advanced on him.
"What's the matter, big
guy?" Chris asked. "Were you
under the impression you were the scariest kid in the playground?" She lifted the crossbow, then put it down. "Nyah.
Too easy." She grinned at
Kirk. "It's not for close-in
fighting, anyway."
Kirk drew his sword, laughing
at her idiotic bravado. She kicked out
at the vampire, hitting him solidly, knocking him back. The vampire scrambled to keep his feet, then
he turned and ran.
"No way." Chris lifted the crossbow, took aim, and let
the bolt fly. It was a perfect shot; the
vampire exploded into dust.
"Well, that was
unsporting of him," Kirk said as he pushed his sword back into the case.
"I'll say." She pushed the crossbow behind her back and
walked with him toward the middle of the cemetery.
They strolled along in
silence for a while, and he was glad to just get his bearings again, to come
down from the high place that the magic had taken them.
"Can I tell you
something?" she asked.
"You can tell me
anything."
She took a deep breath. "Today...in the portal. I sort of panicked."
He slowed. "Well, you didn't know if it would
work."
She shook her head. "It wasn't that. It was like being trapped...have I ever told
you what happened to me in the sewers?"
"No. But David did." At her startled look, he said, "I need
to tell you the truth about that. Not
because it is the truth, but because David is going to pull it out and use it
against you. And I want you to be prepared
for it."
"How does he know about
it?"
"Let's sit." He guided her to a bench, took a deep breath
and told her what David had told him about the Cruciamentum, about her own
watcher's role in the trial. He told her
everything he could remember, didn't spare her.
She stared at him through the
telling, barely blinking. He thought at
first she didn't believe him, but then he saw the tears in her eyes. She believed.
She knew. Maybe she'd always
known, just hadn't been able to admit it to herself.
"I'm sorry, Chris."
"Roger did that to
me." She blinked and a cascade of
tears fell down her cheeks. She blinked
again but no more tears fell. She smiled
instead, a bitter, angry smile. "I
shouldn't be surprised. Look at what his
android self did to you. He might have
done that to me too. In time. Made me into a proper mate." She looked away. "They're monsters. The watchers."
Kirk wasn't sure what to say.
"And they're still doing
it."
He nodded, even though he
knew it hadn't been a question.
"We'll stop them. Somehow." She seemed to shudder. "No more. No more of this." She gave him a hard look. "You knew and you didn't tell me."
"I was going to tell
you."
She nodded, her face hard.
"Chris." He touched her arm, but she pulled it
away. Not a jerk, just a gentle tugging,
moving inexorably away from him.
"No." He pulled her to him, felt her tense. "No, I was just waiting for the right
time. Stop it. Think of what we did tonight. Together." His fingers found her necklace, rubbed
between it and her skin. "You want
to pull away just because I was having trouble finding the right time to tell
you something I knew would hurt you?"
She stopped pulling away,
looked up at him. Her eyes were hurt and
lost. "Why? Why do they do this to us? We're just kids when they find us. When they turn us into killers. How can they do it to us?"
She sobbed and he pulled her
closer, wrapping his arms around her and holding her as she cried. Strange, broken sobs came from her, as if she
was still trying to hold it all in.
"It's all right. I've got you."
Her arms tightened around him
almost painfully but he didn't make a sound, even as his ribs protested.
"I don't know why they
do it, Chris. We'll stop it. Somehow, we will."
She let up on his ribs and he
sighed in relief.
"Oh, Jim, I'm sorry." She smiled sheepishly.
"It's okay." He kissed her, a soft, gentle kiss that had
nothing to do with sex and everything to do with trying to tell the scared
little girl she'd probably never been allowed to be that it was all right. That he was there and nothing bad would get
her. Ever.
She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, his Chris was
back. But she looked older and terribly tired.
"Who do we trust, Jim?"
"Each other. We trust each other." He wiped her cheeks. "I'll never hurt you."
"Spock said that
too. So did Roger. The words mean less each time." She looked away.
He tugged her chin gently
until she looked at him. "I've
never said them to you. They mean
everything to me."
She sighed. Then she looked past him. "We've got company. Humans I think. Stupid ones."
He turned around and felt his
heart catch in his throat. He turned
quickly and grabbed Chris, pulling her close.
"Jim, what?"
"Just don't move. Not till they've gone by." He ran his hands down her back as if they
were two lovers too hungry for each other to find a room.
As soon as he heard footsteps
pass, he pulled away. He watched the two
people walking down the path, the light falling on their blonde heads. Carol. And David.
"You know them."
He nodded.
Chris studied them. "Tell me."
He shook his head, an
instinctive reaction. But not the right
one. He'd kept this inside for so
long. Only McCoy knew. And Spock.
No one else. No one else but
Carol and she didn't care how much Kirk hurt.
"That's my son," he
said softly.
"Your son?" She stood, pulled him up.
"We can't. I promised I'd stay away." He felt an odd sense of panic fill him. His son was so close. And he had to stay away.
She forced him to look at
her. "Jim. We're in the cemetery at night. They need us to follow them."
God, how could he have
forgotten that? They were helpless. Alone.
With the vampires and the werewolves and other ghastly things he'd
learned really did go bump in the night.
"They can't be a part of this."
"Look at me." When he didn't, she shook him. "Look at me, Jim."
It hurt. He looked at her. "Chris.
My son. We have to protect him."
"We will. Come on." She pulled him, and they hurried down the
path, following Carol and David.
When Carol and David turned
off toward a row of graves, Chris led him into the bushes. They slowly worked their way closer, then she
turned and looked him in the eye as if taking his measure.
He touched her arm. "I'm okay," he said softly. "I just didn't expect to see them. They've been offworld for so long."
"Well, they should have
stayed offworld a while longer. This
cemetery is far too busy these days."
She nodded past Carol and his
son, to where a vampire was emerging out of the bushes.
"No." The word came out as a moan, a prayer.
Chris swung the crossbow
around and sighted. "They'll never
know he was there, Jim. Trust
me." She let the bolt fly.
He smiled. He did trust her. She hit the vampire dead in the heart. He didn't make a sound, just stared at the
bolt sticking out of him in confusion, then burst into a cloud of dust. Carol and David never even turned around.
She looked at him. "See.
Nothing to fear. I'll take care
of your son."
He nodded.
She took his hand in
hers. "We'll make sure they get
home okay."
He squeezed her hand
back. In all his time with Carol, he'd
never trusted her the way he did the woman standing next to him. The woman who had just saved his son.
"Your son has a name?"
"David."
"Popular name these
days." She smiled tentatively, the
expression growing bigger when he nodded and smiled too. She turned to watch Carol and David. "What's he like?"
"I don't know."
She turned and shot him a
startled look. "You don't?"
"She wanted me to stay
away."
"That's not fair,"
she said quickly.
He shook his head. "She wanted me to stay with her. Stay here, on the ground. Not be in space."
"But we're
Starfleet. That's where we work."
He nodded. "I couldn't promise I'd stay with
her. So I had to promise I'd stay
away."
Her hand tightened in
his. "I'm sorry, Jim."
"I know you are."
They stood in silence for a
long time. Then she whispered, "So
much pain. It's what marks us and molds
us, isn't it? Not the good
times." She shook her head. "They're so hard to remember. The good times."
"I know."
She looked over at him. "Do you know that most of the ones I
remember now have to do with you?"
He squeezed her hand. "That's nice to say."
"Just the
truth." She pushed him farther back
into the bushes. "They're coming
this way."
They stood still in the
shadows as the woman he'd once loved and the son who he'd never had the chance
to love walked by. Chris gave his hand a
final squeeze, then let go, stepping out of the bushes to follow them. To make
sure they got safely home. Wherever home
was for them.
Wherever it was, he knew he
would never be welcome in it.
Uhura looked out the glass
door into the darkness. She hadn't meant
to stay this late but Nogura's staff had tasked her with a rush project that
had taken her most of the night. She
almost wished she'd had to work through to morning, then there would have been
no decision to make. She knew it was
dangerous out there, but she was tired and cranky and just wanted to go
home.
But she also wanted to stay
alive. She patted her jacket. Stake.
One. Check. And she almost knew how to use it.
She felt a presence behind
her and whirled, hand reaching for her pocket, then dropped it when she saw
Admiral Ciani.
"Nice work tonight,
Commander. That was exactly what we
needed," Ciani said, smiling at Uhura as she walked past her, heading into
the night without a care.
Uhura supposed it was easy to
be carefree when you could turn into a wolf if you wanted to. She looked up at the night sky. Clouds covered the moon, but she knew that it
was full tonight. She couldn't decide if
it would be a good idea to run after Ciani or not.
She sighed and mustered her
courage and headed out into the night.
Ciani was just disappearing down a bend in the path toward town. Uhura hurried but when she got to the bend,
Ciani was out of sight.
"Great."
"Lose someone?" The voice was English, male, and silky.
She turned around, praying
that the man would be wearing tweed.
No tweed. No tweed at all. She tried not to react to the stranger who
stood blocking her path to command.
"I'm fine," she
said brightly, turning and walking quickly away. If she just didn't show any fear, she'd be
fine. Besides, San Francisco was
probably home to more than one black-haired Englishman who liked to walk around
in the middle of the night.
"It's Nyota Uhura, isn't
it?" He kept up easily with her,
shadowing her, almost but not quite out of her peripheral vision.
She slowed.
"I believe that watcher
I killed had a picture of you among all his other information on
Christine."
"You have me at an disadvantage,"
she said gamely, reaching for her pocket.
"The name's Wharton--and
you'll never get it out before I break your arm. So do us both a favor and leave your little
stake alone."
She swallowed hard, couldn't
bring herself to drop her hand. It would
be giving up and an Uhura never gave up.
He took her arm, holding her
close to him. "I'm not going to
hurt you."
"Right. You're just walking me home."
"Actually, I am. It's dangerous out here, you know."
"Funny. I felt better until you showed up."
He laughed. "You have spirit. I like you."
"Yeah, yeah. All the vampires like me." She shook her head.
"You knew another
one?"
"Drusilla wanted to make
me a pet."
"Impressive. An old one taking a fancy to you. Of course, she was crazy as a loon."
"No shit,
Sherlock."
He surprised her by laughing
loudly. "I like you Nyota. I can call you that, can't I? Commander seems so formal."
"Can I stop you?"
He shook his head, and his
grip tightened on her as they left the Starfleet grounds. She realized he was heading for the cemetery
and looked around for someone, anyone who might help her. The street was deserted.
"I'm not going to hurt
you. Just relax," he said, as he
drew her past the gates and deeper into the cemetery.
She began to struggle.
"Shhh, I'm not going to
hurt you."
"Why don't I believe
you?"
"Perhaps because he
lacks sincerity?" Emma stepped out
of the shadows. "Hello,
David."
He let go of Uhura. "Thank you, my dear. As bait, you performed admirably. And I find your company charming. Now run along."
Emma nodded. "Better do what he says, my dear. This is between David and me." She pulled out some sort of weapon. "Christine told me you were better
provisioned than we thought. Body armor,
David?" She tsked-tsked like he'd
broken an important rule.
"Body armor that your
little toy will have no effect on, Emma."
He tsked-tsked right back at her.
Uhura backed away from
Wharton. "You were following
me?" she asked Emma.
"Yes. I thought he might come after you."
Wharton smiled. "I knew you'd think I would. You never did understand me Emma. Despite our closeness."
Her face tightened. "Don't you dare speak of that. You aren't David. You're just the dirty beast that took his
place."
"Is that what you think,
love? Is that what you
believe?" He looked over at Uhura. "There's no demon. It's just another lie they tell the
slayers. One that makes it easier to
turn them into killers. But we always
knew, in special ops. We always knew the truth.
You don't have to be a monster to be evil." He turned back to Emma. "You and all the other watchers prove
that. But that ends here. At least for you."
"Did you think I'd come
alone? We knew you'd bring her
here." Emma turned to the
bushes. "You can come out."
No one emerged from the
darkness.
"I knew to bring her here,
because here is where I found your fellow watchers." He dug into his pocket and fished several
bright things out. He tossed them on the
ground. They were gold rings--as well as
the fingers they had been attached to.
Uhura turned away with a
strangled cry.
"I found your little trap
and sprang it. Now, what were you saying
about not being alone?"
Uhura stepped closer to
Emma. "She's not alone."
Wharton shook his head. "You can't stop me."
Emma held up the weapon. "Go ahead, David. Let's finish this."
"Am I interrupting
something?" Ciani stepped out of
the bushes as if it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be
gallivanting around the shrubbery. "This
seems like an awfully tense situation.
I'm a trained mediator, maybe I can help."
Wharton smiled. "I don't know what you think you're
doing, kitten. But best move on."
"Kitten?" Ciani laughed. The sound came out like a growl. "You should move on, Mister Wharton. I'm not going to let you hurt Christine's
friends."
"And just how are you
going to stop me?"
Ciani smiled. It was the most feral smile Uhura had ever
seen. Then she began to shudder...and to
change. Her clothes ripped, fur erupted,
and something between a wolf and a person stood before them.
Wharton laughed. "One little werewolf. Hardly a challenge, my dear."
Ciani howled, one long cry,
then three short yips.
Another werewolf appeared
behind her. And another. And a third.
They growled, moving to flank Wharton.
He seemed to be weighing his odds, shifting to the balls of his feet as
if about to attack.
Ciani gave three more short
yips. Three more werewolves emerged from
the bushes behind them. Uhura moved even
closer to Emma.
Wharton held his hands up in
some kind of surrender. "Quite
right. I'll just be going." He looked over at Emma. "Another time, dearest." Then he nodded to Uhura. "It was lovely meeting you."
Ciani snarled, the other
werewolves echoed her growl.
"I'm going." Wharton moved past Ciani, then melted into
the shadows.
Emma stepped forward. "What now?"
Ciani shook her head, and the
change began again. A moment later the
proper admiral stood before them. Naked.
She smiled seductively at
them, then snapped her fingers. One of
the other wolves went into the bushes, coming out with a pile of clothes. Ciani put them on. Slowly.
Uhura looked away. Emma didn't.
But she seemed uninterested in Ciani's impromptu burlesque, more concerned
with winning some kind of stare-down with the admiral.
Ciani stepped toward
them. She closed her eyes, raised her
hand and brought it down quickly.
Uhura's ears popped. Emma grabbed her head, as if the change in
pressure hurt her. Then she stood
straight again. "Why?"
"Why did I help
you?"
Emma nodded.
Ciani smiled. "You're Christine's friend, Ms.
Drake. That vampire would have killed
you. You and Christine owe me. You'll tell her that for me?"
Emma frowned.
"What about me?"
Uhura asked.
"You were never in any
danger."
Uhura stared at her. "You kept me after hours deliberately."
Ciani laughed. "Of course. How else could I save the day? I just didn't know exactly how it would play
out. But it was easy to track
you." She crinkled her nose at
Uhura. "I like that perfume, by the
way."
She brought her hand slashing
down and Uhura's ears popped again.
"What the hell
did--"
Emma's hand on her arm
stopped her. The watcher shook her head,
held her finger to her lips.
"You've got the
idea." Ciani finger combed her
short hair back into place. "Come
on. We'll walk you both home."
With a silent admiral leading
the way and six werewolves ranging through the bushes and shadows of the
residential streets, it was the strangest trip home Uhura had ever taken.
--------------------------
Kirk saw his aide coming down
the hall toward the briefing room he'd been stuck in all morning. "Everything all right, Commander?"
Hall nodded. "Admiral Nogura's secretary just commed,
sir. He wants to see you ASAP."
Kirk rolled his eyes. When Nogura wanted to see someone, it was
always as soon as possible-- it had been far too long since the man had to wait
for anyone. "Was there something
else, Commander?"
Hall nodded. "A message from Doctor Chapel."
Kirk grinned. Maybe Chris wanted to have lunch. He could do with a break from the brass.
Hall handed him the
padd. "She made me repeat it
back. I hope it makes sense to you,
sir."
He had to read it twice. "Communications and visual capability
nearly went dead last night. Fortunately
that wild officer and a few of the pack she runs with intervened. All systems normal again. We owe her."
Kirk gave the padd back to
Hall.
"It makes sense,
sir?"
Kirk nodded.
Hall waited a moment as if
Kirk might choose to share the hidden meaning, then he said, "Do you want
to reply?"
"No need. I'll be talking to her later." He smiled at his aide, not sure, as ever, if
he should trust the man or not. These
days his gut told him not trust anyone except Chris and Nyota. It was an odd feeling to be at Command,
surrounded by his peers--the men and women he'd risen up the ranks with--and to
be too wary to trust a single one of them.
His brave new world. Some days he hated it. Wished he could go back to the time when he
didn't see conspiracies everywhere he looked.
Where he didn't have to consciously try to fortify his personal shields
before he went to see his boss.
Nogura's secretary looked
up. "Hello, Jim." She shot him the same warm smile she always gave
him.
"Ellie," he grinned
at her. "How's the old man's mood?"
"Pretty good today. Aren't you forgetting something?" She held her hand out to him, and he bowed,
playing at being gallant. It was their
little game.
He took her hand and felt his
hackles rise. Another werewolf?
She frowned when he abruptly
let her hand drop. "You can go
in."
He nodded, trying not to
hurry past her. Just how many of them
were there in Starfleet?
"Jim?" Nogura smiled at him. "Come in. I believe you know my guest?" The admiral gestured toward the floor to
ceiling windows that lined the side of his office.
Kirk turned toward them, felt
his breath catch.
"Hello, Jim." Carol smiled tightly. For her it was a positively welcoming look.
"Carol."
"Why don't you both sit?" Nogura leaned back and tapped on a padd. "Doctor Marcus has been showing me some
very ingenious research, Jim. I'd call
it visionary. It only lacks
funding."
Kirk shot her a look. "Dealing with the devil, Carol? I thought you said you'd never ask for
military support?"
Her lips tightened.
Nogura laughed. "Let's just say the private funding
sources have dried up."
Kirk nodded. He could feel the trap springing closed on
him already. "What about
academia?"
Carol shook her head. "You always told me I tended to think
too big."
He shot a look at Nogura. Kirk knew that the Tachikawa-Nogura Corporation
could convince academia not to play, not when even bigger grants were at
stake. He looked back at Carol. Only one project could consume her enough for
her to put her scruples aside. "You
haven't given up on Genesis?"
Carol shook her head tightly.
Nogura set the padd down a
bit harder than was necessary, as if to get their attention. "From here on out, that name, and
anything to do with the project, is classified."
Carol leaned forward. "Then you'll fund it?"
"I'll take it to those
who can make it happen. I'll let you
know what they say but I'm sure they'll approve it. I tend to get my way."
Carol smiled, a more open
expression this time.
"I know I'd love to have
a scientific mind of your caliber here at Command." Nogura smiled at Kirk. "I'm sure Jim would love it too,
wouldn't you, my friend? Having Doctor
Marcus and her son around. Now that
you're so firmly ensconced in the Command structure." He shot Carol a look. "Ensconced here on terra firma. No more shooting around the galaxy at
lightspeed." His smile was easy,
innocent. Just one old spacedog teasing
another.
Kirk could feel his jaw
tensing.
Nogura stood up, and Kirk and
Carol followed suit.
"I'll be in touch as
soon as I have the decision on your project, Carol." Nogura enfolded her hand in his.
She nodded to him then turned
to Kirk, glaring at him, as if the conditions on her research had been his
doing. "Jim."
"Carol." He watched her as she walked out.
Nogura stepped closer. "It's time for us to stop tiptoeing
around things, my friend. You want your
son, and I can make that happen for you.
I wouldn't be above securing a private little agreement with the good
doctor for visiting privileges for you in exchange for that funding she wants
so desperately." Nogura walked over
to his bar, poured them both a scotch.
Kirk sipped at his. It tasted funny, tingled and then went sour
as it hit his tongue. Magic?
"You know what I want,
Jim. Doctor Chapel holds the key, and
you have a great deal of influence over her these days." He smiled as he sipped at his drink. "What's the matter? Don't like the scotch?"
Kirk put it down. "Tastes funny."
Nogura stepped closer. He seemed to be studying Kirk, then his eyes
seemed to lose focus, as if he were staring into him yet past him. "Lori's been holding out on me. You're quite the powerful little magicmaker,
aren't you, Jim?" His hand brushed
down Kirk's arm, never in contact with the skin yet somehow touching him.
Kirk shuddered, took a step
back. As he did, he brushed against one
of the side tables, knocking it slightly.
An ivory carving fell off and he bent to pick it up. As he set it back on the table, he noticed
the flower arrangement. Irises. Blue and white and yellow. They had a strong smell--a unique smell. He forced himself not to react to the odor
that immediately put him back in the morgue, made him recall the moment when
he'd had his hand on Carl's cold body, when he'd tried to find some trace of
his friend's killer.
"You like the
arrangement? My wife scours our iris
fields for just the right flowers. She's
known for her ikebana. She did a
beautiful arrangement for Carl's funeral."
Kirk turned to look at
him. Could he be so blatant about murder?
"Enemies are everywhere,
Jim. It's important to choose the side
you want to fight on."
"And what if I choose
wrong?"
Nogura's eyes were like
steel, then he smiled and patted Kirk on the arm. "You won't, Jim. You never do." Nogura took a deep breath. "You know, I was like you once. Just learning, just starting to touch the
power deep inside me. I remember how it
felt. What a rush I used to get whenever
the magic went right." He smiled,
as if he were reminiscing. "That
was a long time ago, my friend." He
shook his head. "I'm more powerful
than you can even dream. Do you think
you and your slayer can stand between me and what I want?"
Kirk grinned. "We already are. Or we wouldn't be having this
conversation."
Nogura's smile faded. "Your son, Jim. He's what?
Fifteen? He needs his
father. I can see that Carol's a
stubborn woman. I may be the only one
who can make her see things your way."
He turned away. "She's
waiting for you in the corridor, even now." He grinned at Kirk's look of surprise. "And she's not happy."
"You can see that?"
Nogura laughed. "I could if I wanted to. But no.
I just know people. She's already
figured out what her funding will be tied to.
She's not stupid. You'd never
fall in love with a stupid woman. It's why
I hold such high hopes for you and Doctor Chapel. She seems like a fine woman...a fine officer." Nogura's smiled faded. "I know you care what happens to
her."
Kirk shook his head. "Don't threaten her."
"You misunderstand
me. She's slated to ship out on the
Enterprise. Wouldn't you rather have her
on Earth with you? There are so many
wonderful postings here she could take advantage of. With the right sponsor..."
Kirk didn't reply. Chris was going where she needed to go. Away from the slaying, away from this
madness. And he was fine with that. She was his friend. Nothing more.
Nogura laughed as if he were
privy to the lies Kirk was telling himself.
"Ever the altruist, Jim. Show
some of that altruism for me and for your Fleet. Get me what I want." He walked back to his chair and sat down, the
discussion clearly over.
Kirk turned and left. Ellie looked up as he walked out but didn't
say anything.
Carol was pacing in the
corridor. She turned, stared at him
hard. "You put him up to this."
"I didn't."
She moved closer, her voice
dropping lower. "He made it very
clear that he's your friend. I can't
believe you would do this, Jim."
"Then don't. I didn't have anything to do with it, I swear
it." He thought he saw her soften
somewhat. "Carol. I've done what you wanted. Why would I pull this now?"
She sighed. "I'm so close, Jim. So close to getting the go ahead. I can't lose it now."
"I know." He'd never understood her obsession with her
pet project, but after this many years, he knew better than to say so. He tried another tack. "We're both on Earth, Carol. What would it hurt?" He saw her face harden and wondered what had
happened to the young woman he'd loved so much.
"Jim, why change things
now? It'll only confuse David."
"He's old enough to
know. He needs a father." Nogura's words seemed to come out of his
mouth unbidden. The man had definitely known
exactly which of Kirk's buttons to push.
"He's got a mother. I've had to do everything for him and I've
done it well."
"That was your
choice."
"The only choice I could
make. You wouldn't have been in his life
even if I'd stayed with you. You would
have been out there." She gestured
up, her hand motion full of anger and disdain.
It was the old argument and he'd
heard it all before, had no interest in revisiting it.
He sighed. "You knew I was on a ship. You fell in love with me anyway."
"I was young and
stupid." She was angry and growing
angrier. But she would never yell, would
never lose control. Not this Carol. This cold, hard Carol.
He had a sudden urge to be
with Chris. She should have been even
harder than Carol was, certainly had the right to be after her harsh life, but
she wasn't hard. He pictured Chris as
she'd stood the night before--her aim steady as she'd killed the vampire that
would have torn into Carol without a thought.
And he could never tell Carol
that. That he'd kept his promise even
then. He'd stayed away. Hadn't even followed when they'd turned down
to the row of apartments. Had let Chris
shadow them but he'd held back. He
didn't want to know where they lived.
He'd made a promise.
And he lived up to his
promises.
"You think because
you're stuck on the ground that I'll let you see David?" Carol shook her head. "You're all alone and at a desk and you
think that gives you the right to have him in your life?"
"Not the right
maybe. But the need...Carol, I need to
see him."
"Is this where you
remind me of my funding?" She
laughed bitterly.
"I told you that I had
nothing to do with that."
"But will you use it now
that it's part of the deal, Jim? That's
the real question, isn't it?" Her look changed, as if all the air had been
knocked out of her. "The sad thing
is that I just might do it. Trade him
for the funding. This is my last
chance."
"Would it be so bad to
let me see him? To have me around?"
Her look softened
slightly. Had he finally found the right
approach? Was Carol lonely too?
Then she shook her head. "I can't believe you'd try to pull the
smarm approach on me. Don't you think
after all these years that I'm immune to your charms?"
He reached for her, touched
her arm. "Carol--"
She jerked away as if he'd
stung her. "Stay the hell away from
us. Neither of us will ever need
you."
"Am I interrupting?"
Chris said from behind Kirk. She smiled
but her eyes were wary and he wondered how much she'd heard of what Carol had
said.
Chris moved closer, took
Kirk's arm. "Who's your
friend?"
"A new bimbo,
Jim?" Carol's mouth tightened in an
ugly way.
Chris held out her hand. "Doctor Chapel. And you are?"
Carol grudgingly took her
hand. "Doctor Marc--" She made a low moan.
Kirk thought he heard bones
pop in Carol's hand.
Chris leaned in. "I don't like being called a bimbo. And your attitude toward Jim bothers
me." She squeezed a bit more and
Carol winced. "When I let go, maybe
we can start over again?" She
dropped Carol's hand.
Carol moved her fingers
tentatively. "You're insane."
"Maybe. But not a bimbo." Chris turned to him. "Are you done here?"
"Long past." He let her lead him away.
"Wow, nice lady,
Jim. What did you see in her?" She dropped his arm, but moved closer, her
shoulder bumping his occasionally as they walked.
"She wasn't like that
before. She used to be warm."
"Uh huh." She shot him a look.
"Did you break anything
in her hand?"
"Felt like doing
that. But no." She looked over at him. "Why is she here?"
"She needs funding for a
project. Nogura has funding. If I get you to give Nogura what he wants,
then Nogura will make sure I get to see my son."
Her face fell. "Jim.
No."
"Of course, no. We won't give him what he wants."
"No, I mean how could
he?" She looked as though she'd
like to go back and give Nogura a piece of her mind. Or her fists.
"It's doesn't
matter. I won't give him what he
wants."
"But your son? Maybe if we played along..."
He shook his head. "Just drop it, Chris. All right?"
She rubbed his back, high up
between his shoulder blades--the place he usually touched her when she needed
bolstering. "I'm sorry."
He nodded. They walked in silence for a while.
He finally said, "Your
message was rather cryptic."
"Well, I couldn't just
say that Ny and Emma were nearly killed by a vampire. Or could I?
Is Hall one of Nogura's people?"
He shrugged.
"Lori saved them,
Jim. But from what Ny said, Lori wanted
to make the big gesture so we'd owe her.
So I guess I have to go to her."
"Is that where you were
headed when you saw Carol and me?"
She nodded.
"Lori can wait. Have lunch with me first?"
She grinned. "Okay."
"You're such a tough
sell." He squeezed her hand, a
quick steadying touch. He needed to feel
her warmth. Needed to know that there
was more than Carol's coldness and Nogura's dark magic.
"You mean you want me to
play hard to get?" She laughed, her
fingers running lightly over his, as if she also knew he needed the
contact. "Damn, I knew I was doing
something wrong."
He smiled at her. Her touch and her smile and the smell of her
perfume soothed him. He looked up
suddenly.
"What?"
He could suddenly smell the
irises, their almost sickeningly sweet fragrance. "I have the proof I need. To tie Nogura to Carl." He wasn't sure if they should be discussing
anything sensitive. How much could
Nogura really see and hear?
She waited.
He shook his head. "Later.
When we're not here."
She nodded, following him
into the cafeteria. "Why don't we
eat outside? It's a beautiful
day." She smiled. "We don't see enough of the sun."
"No, we
don't." He let her lead them out of
the stifling atmosphere of Command and into the bright sunshine.
----------------------------------
Lori's office was dark, and
her aide looked up as Christine walked toward his desk.
"Admiral Ciani is
out."
"Do you know when she'll
return?"
"She said she wouldn't
be back today." He gave her a
polite smile. "Shall I tell her you
stopped by, Lieutenant Chapel?"
As she walked back to
Starfleet Medical, she frowned. Lori had
wanted to see her. She'd made that clear
to Uhura. But she hadn't said when or
where.
Christine was betting that it
wasn't in Command, and sooner was probably better than later. She strolled down to the piers, enjoying the
sunshine, trying to work off a strange lingering tension. She hadn't meant to leave her rounds to see
Lori, but she'd felt as if she had to.
As if she was needed. And it had
been clear once she'd seen Jim talking to that woman in the corridors, just who
had needed her.
Her reaction to Carol Marcus
had been visceral. She'd felt
immediately protective of Jim, wanted to stop the woman from hurting him. Of course, Carol probably hadn't realized she
was hurting him. She hadn't seen his
face the night before, when he'd watched his son from afar, or later when he'd
hung back, hadn't followed the two of them to the apartment on the corner.
Christine could tell he was
hurting. Had been especially in tune
with him last night. It had been such a
strange evening. Swinging from the
immense high of the erotically charged spell they'd done together to such
terrible soul-deep sadness. Hers over the
trial the watchers had put her through.
His over his son and this woman who seemed to dislike him so.
In a million years, Christine
could never fathom disliking Jim Kirk.
He was just so...honorable. And
sweet. God, he was so sweet.
She sighed. She couldn't let herself dwell on what she
wanted or how much she wanted it. She
knew what held him back, and she had to respect it.
For now.
And she was going away
soon. On the Enterprise. The closer she got to Jim, the less she
wanted to take the assignment.
She neared the water, saw the
bench she'd shared with Lori, and later with Emma. It was empty.
Lori wasn't here.
She turned. Wished she had a werewolf's sense of
smell. Even a vampire could scent better
than she could. But she had a perfectly
good brain and it wouldn't kill her to use it.
Where would Lori be?
She turned and headed back
toward downtown, back toward the alley she'd found Lori waiting in last
time. There was no one in the alley and
the door was locked. Surely if Lori was
waiting for her, she'd leave it unlocked if not open.
Christine walked back out the
other side of the alley, trying to retrace Uhura's steps. Where had the werewolves gone?
Christine turned and looked
at the restaurant Uhura had said they'd gone into. It was the odd part of the story, the thing
that didn't make sense. She headed
across the street and walked into the restaurant.
"We're not
serving," a man called out, not even looking up from the game he was playing
at the bar.
"I'm meeting a
friend."
He turned around, checked her
out, his stare raking up and down her body, his eyes narrowing. "Come here."
She took a deep breath,
walked over. "Your manners leave
something to be desired."
He grabbed her, threw her
back against the bar. He moved in,
sniffing at her, his mouth close to her ear.
"You're not one of us."
"No kidding." She didn't move. "Now get away from me."
"Shouldn't have come in
here. Don't belong here." He tightened his hold on her arm.
She kneed him sharply in the
groin. As he doubled over, she knocked
his head back with her joined fists, followed it up with a punch in the
gut. She stepped to the side and he fell
to his knees, his head hitting against the bar.
She pulled his head back.
"Manners. So important. Now, where's Lori?"
"Downstairs." He
pointed back toward some stairs, the movement made almost spastic by his
pain.
She let his head go and he
crumpled into a ball.
"Thank you." She went down the stairs, kicked the door in
hard enough to hit anyone who might be on the other side, not hard enough to
take it off the hinges.
She heard a muffled groan,
and pushed the door harder against the person she'd pinned to the wall. "You wanted to see me?" she asked
looking around the room for Lori.
"It took you long enough
to get here." Lori glanced up from
a table far from the door. She frowned
at Christine. "Could you quit
beating up the betas? It's beneath
you."
Christine let go of the door
and a woman edged away from behind it.
She slunk past Christine and then hurried over to Lori. Christine saw Lori glare at her as the woman
went into another room. Several other
people followed her--all werewolves, Christine presumed.
"Come sit." Lori nodded at the men sitting with her and
they got up and moved to another table.
Christine sat down. "So you saved my friend."
"I did."
"You also kept her late
so she'd be in danger in the first place."
"Yep. Did that too." Lori smiled at her. It was a sexy smile.
Christine looked away. Reminded
herself it was a full moon and she wasn't immune to the pheromones floating her
way.
Lori reached over and touched
her. "Oh my. What have you been doing lately? You positively tingle with magic." She ran her fingers over the back of
Christine's hand, making her shiver.
"And you're horny as hell."
Christine jerked her hand
away. "Let's stick to
business."
"I thought we
were." Lori laughed. She seemed different. Softer.
And lighter.
Christine studied her. Relaxed.
Lori seemed relaxed. "What
is this place? I mean other than a
hangout for the hip if somewhat hairy set?"
Lori laughed again. "I do like you, you know."
Christine shook her
head. This woman was dangerous. She had to remember that. She had to not think about how maybe she
liked her a little bit too.
"This place is our
refuge. Away from him." Lori closed her eyes. "It's safe to say his name here. I just hate to do it. I like to think there's a place he doesn't
exist. That he can't find me."
"He's your mentor. He's guided your career. Isn't that true?"
Lori's good mood
evaporated. "Yes, it is. But it isn't the whole truth." She pushed away from the table. "I have to show you something."
As Christine stood, Lori
closed her eyes, began to mutter something.
When she opened her eyes, her irises were solid black. She began to move her hands around
Christine's body, as if she was building a bubble around her.
She pulled away, her eyes
returning to normal. "Maya, come in
here."
The woman who had been behind
the door walked in. She looked at
Christine and nodded. "Where'd the
slayer go?"
Lori smiled. "Where indeed. That's all, Maya."
Maya looked confused, but
went back into the other room.
Lori shook her head. "I'm being generous by calling her a
beta. She'd be the omega if she weren't
my sister." The look Lori threw
Maya's way seemed to lack any affection--it was more full of obligation.
"What did you do to
me?"
'"It's just a
glamour. When anyone looks at you,
they'll see someone vaguely familiar. Another wolf, but they won't remember
which one if they try to remember. Don't
talk until I tell you it's okay. He'll
be able to hear us until we're in the pens."
"The pens?"
Lori shot her a look. "Don't talk. And you'll see." She turned and led Christine back up the
stairs and out of the restaurant. They
walked across the street and in through the front of the building Lori had said
was shielded.
They passed through several
rooms, before coming to a small hangar where a flitter was waiting. Lori motioned her in and flew them out of the
city, heading off in the direction Christine and Jim had taken when they'd gone
to Nogura's party.
She looked over at Lori. The woman sat with her jaw set. She glanced over at Christine. There was no smile now, no laugh. This was serious. Dangerous.
Christine could feel her slayer senses going on alert. Lori was showing her something
important.
And probably not very nice.
They slowed at the gate. Lori waited as someone--or something,
Christine wasn't quite sure--in a long hooded robe appeared from out of the
bushes and walked around the flitter.
Christine forced herself to
sit quietly, as if she'd been there a hundred times. As if she wasn't an interloper.
The hooded figure nodded at
Lori. She steered the flitter into a
small open area and set it down. Getting
out, she moved quickly across the yard and toward a building that looked like a
stable.
Christine followed her, then
she caught a whiff of a strong fragrance.
She turned, saw a field of flowers spread out in front of her. Irises, she realized. Beautiful.
But the smell was overpowering.
She hadn't realized they could smell so strongly. All the ones she'd seen were odorless. Near the edge of the field, the flowers looked
different. Smaller and more of them on
the stems. She frowned. Was that wolfsbane?
She looked at Lori, her
eyebrows forming the question.
Lori nodded. Then she pointed to the other side of the
field. A group of people were harvesting
some of the wolfsbane.
Lori motioned for her to
follow her. They went through the stable
and down some stairs. A huge metal door
stood at the bottom. Lori touched it in
a strange series of motions, and it opened.
As it shut behind them, Lori
said softly. "We can talk now. But try to limit what you say in front of
anyone."
"He can't see us
here?"
"He wouldn't look
here. It's his safest place." Lori's face was hard. Her brown eyes seemed to have turned to some
kind of iron.
"You hate him."
Lori smiled bitterly. "You'll understand why in a
minute." She led Christine to
another door, metal again.
"What are these supposed
to keep out?"
"Not out. In."
Lori opened the door and motioned her in.
Christine was struck by the
noise and the smell. She smelled sweat,
the kind of sticky, fear-filled sweat that lingered forever in a place. Moans and odd cries filled the air. She brushed at her arms, suddenly feeling
edgy and ready to fight.
"Pheromones," Lori
murmured. "Concentrated. Powerful.
Makes you want to jump out of your skin, doesn't it?"
Christine nodded.
"Imagine what it does to
my kind."
"What is this
place?"
"In Japanese it
translates as the place of conditioning.
We just call it the pens."
She stepped forward, walking around a narrow catwalk that ringed the
place.
Christine looked down. The room was full of people. Some walking free, some in restraints, others
loose but locked in cages.
"All
werewolves." Lori stepped close to
her. "The ones not roaming free
haven't learned to control the change yet." She sighed.
"But they will."
Christine watched as a woman
in a gray coat walked over to a young man shackled naked to the wall. She held some sort of metal rod, which she
poked him with.
Sparks erupted, and he
changed immediately, the wolf snarling at the woman. She yelled something at him, and he lunged
for her. She stuck him in the gut again,
holding the stick against him for a very long time. He finally changed to human, collapsed
crying, hanging from the shackles.
"Why?"
"Do you know the story
of Sachiko?"
Christine nodded. "She didn't die?"
"Well, she did. Long enough to call the next slayer. Then they took her away. They were sure they
could 'fix' her." Lori pulled her
farther along the catwalk.
"And they did."
Lori nodded. "A combination of herbs, pain,
meditation."
"Magic?"
Lori looked at her
sharply. "No, not magic. Most of my kind don't have it. I'm a prodigy of sorts."
"So when he found
you--"
"Found me? Do you think he's just rounding up stray
werewolves?"
Christine pointed out to the
cages. "There are so many here. How else?"
"Open your eyes. We're not foundlings. We're not his charity projects. We're livestock. He breeds us." Lori grabbed her and pulled her harder,
hurrying them around the catwalk.
"He tries breeding one line to another, coming up with different
strains for different tasks. Not all of
us make it. Not all of us can control
it."
"What happens
then?"
Lori pointed down to a cage
where a woman was pacing. "She's
failed." Lori backed up, leaned
against the railing and watched the woman.
"I know her. She's a distant
cousin of mine. And I can't help
her."
"I don't
understand. So she can't control
it. She can be locked up for the
duration. Three days a month, that's
all, right?"
Lori nodded. "That's all." She turned to Christine. There were tears in her eyes.
"What will they do with her?"
"They've loaded her up
with wolfsbane. The aconite will keep
her from changing. But she's frantic
with the need to change. You can tell
that from here." Lori pushed
Christine away, led her down some stairs.
"We do get new blood. If
Nogura's people find a werewolf, they'll bring him or her to the pens. And they often have to be convinced to work
at repressing the change."
She walked over to a pen
behind the one that held the woman. A
man stood at the small window that separated his cage from the woman's. He talked to her as she paced.
"He's new," Lori
said quietly, as if not to disturb him. "They
have grown close, sharing pens as they do.
Grown close as was the design.
Tonight, when he changes, she will not.
And they will open the door between them and he will rip her apart. And they will record it, and show it to him
over and over. Until he begs to be taught how to resist the change."
Christine stared in
horror. "We have to help
them."
Lori shook her head. "We can't. Not here, not this way. The whole place is his, ruled by his
magic. They don't notice us now, and
they don't care that we're here. But if
we tried to help, rest assured we'd be stopped."
Christine took a step toward
the pen, but Lori touched her hand.
"Come away. We can't
help."
She followed Lori back up to
the catwalk until she saw a woman working with a child. When the little girl screamed, Christine stopped,
hands clenching.
"No. Christine.
Come away."
Christine turned. One slayer.
How much damage could one slayer do here?
Lori's voice was soft in her
ear. "You'd be killed before you
could free even a handful. I have a
plan. And it doesn't require you to die
for us. But it does require something
from you."
Christine turned to her
slowly. "Kirsu?"
Lori nodded. "We must go. Say nothing until we are back in the
restaurant."
She led Christine out,
locking the doors behind them, climbing the stairs quickly, hurrying to the
flitter. Christine wanted to go faster,
needed to get far away from the people she had wanted to help but had just
walked away from.
Innocents. What had Emma said? They didn't want to be what they were?
The hooded figure seemed to
take longer to clear them, it stared at Christine. She looked past it, willing her racing heart
to slow, sitting quietly even when it walked toward her side of the
flitter. As it reached for the door, she
tensed.
"Confusion," Lori
murmured. "Fog."
The hooded one stopped. It shook its head, then turned away, waving
Lori through the gate.
Christine looked over, saw
that Lori was sweating. She'd never seen
Lori afraid before. Not like that.
The flight back took no time.
Lori stowed the flitter in
the hangar and hurried out of the building and back to the restaurant.
Maya looked up from setting
the tables in the main room as they came in.
Lori grabbed Christine's hand
and pulled her to the bar. "Get out
of here," she ordered her sister.
Maya fled.
"I need a
drink." She grabbed a bottle,
pulled the stopper out and drank deeply.
Then she turned to Christine, put her hands to either side of
Christine's head, not touching her but pulling outwards as if ripping away the
bubble she'd built. "There. You're you again."
Christine watched the other
woman pace. "It tears you up
inside."
Lori nodded, not stopping her
back and forth movement. "I'm not
just a prodigy; I'm alpha. It kills me
to go down there, to see what's happening to my family. To others like me."
"And you think Kirsu is
your answer? Your promised land?"
"It's daylight
there. All the time. And we'd be far from Earth's moon."
"But it might have its
own moon. Even in the daylight."
Lori shook her head. "Doesn't matter. We only change with our moon. Earth's.
We can feel it even in space, halfway across the quadrant. But in a different dimension, we'd be
safe." She took another drink then
recapped the bottle and stuck it back on the shelf.
"The slayers are
there."
"And they can stay
there. We don't want to hurt
anyone."
Christine shook her
head. "What about Admiral
Richter?"
Lori looked down. "I had to. Nogura would have--" She turned away. "I didn't want to hurt him. I tried to get him to leave well enough
alone. But he had to question, he had to
make a fuss." Lori met her gaze,
her own eyes hard. "I have to
protect my own. And to do that, I have
to maintain Nogura's trust. Carl was a
price I had to pay. And I'd do it
again."
"I can't give you
Kirsu."
Lori nodded. "I know.
Right now you believe you can't give it to anyone. But think about it. That's all I'm asking. You know what you've seen. You know he's a monster. He'll use Kirsu for his own power. He's dangerous. Nogura is more a monster than any of my
kind."
Christine sighed.
"Just think about
it. Please?"
Christine nodded. She was thrown by this new Lori. This slightly-panicked, very serious woman
and her very large problem. "I have
other things to do right now."
"Give me Kirsu, and
we'll take out your vampire. He'll never
hurt anyone again."
"Help me take him out
when I'm ready to move against him, and I'll think about it."
Lori shook her head. "I took a huge risk last night. If Nogura had noticed what we were doing,
then you and I wouldn't be talking. I
can't help you again unless I know that we'll have a safe place to run to. Where he can't get us."
"I have to think about
it."
"Fine. Think about it." Her angry stare held Christine captive until
finally, she looked away.
As Christine walked away, she
called out. "And as you think,
don't forget that innocent people are dying."
Christine hurried out, nearly
running. She didn't slow down until she
got close to Starfleet Medical. She had
rounds to catch up on.
But she found it difficult to
concentrate on her few patients. She
kept hearing the screams of one little girl.
One little girl who'd never asked to be what she was.
Kirk sat in the resources
meeting, trying not to yawn. If he'd
known how much of his life was going to be taken up with administrative duties,
he might have not rushed so quickly through the ranks. It wasn't helping that he had the nagging
feeling that Chris needed him.
When the meeting finally
broke up, he grabbed his padds and escaped before one of his colleagues could
latch onto him for an after-meeting gab session. Hurrying out of Command and over to Medical,
he headed for Chris's office, not even needing to try to feel for her with
magic. He just knew she was there.
She was. "Jim." She smiled as he popped his head in.
"You okay?"
She motioned for him to close
the door.
He sat down in front of
her. "You saw our mutual
friend?"
She nodded. "It's bad."
"I know you can't tell
me here. But later you can." He touched her hand, was troubled by how
shaken she seemed.
She put her other hand over
his, holding him tightly. "I don't
think I can. I don't think I
should. You need to be able to keep working
with...you know who...and if I tell you what I saw, I'm not sure that you'll be
able to. Or that you won't convince me
that we need to do something. Which is
clearly not what our mutual friend wants to happen. Yet."
She sighed. "And she is our
friend. After what I saw, I know who the
enemy is."
He frowned. "What you saw obviously is troubling
you. I think you need to get it
out."
She shook her head. "I'll tell you eventually. But for now, you have to let me hold this
close."
"All right. For
now." He squeezed her hand. "Can our mutual friend help us with our
other little problem?"
"Solutions to our
various problems always seem full of conditions." She touched her neck, a seemingly random
gesture, unless you knew the necklace was there.
He nodded. "Ah."
"We're on our own with
him."
"Not quite." He pulled his hand free and began to call up the
program he'd been playing with during the meeting. The other admirals had probably just thought
he was running numbers for a pet project.
"I've been thinking about what you said. A weapon like a flamethrower only
smaller."
"And you came up with
something?"
"I did. But I also took the liberty of authorizing
phasers for you, and Uhura, and me."
"They won't kill them,
you know that."
He nodded, wondered if the
Klingon-type disruptor weapons would do better.
Could vampire magic stand up to a beam that could tear a body's
subatomic structure to pieces? "I
know the kill setting won't work, but at close enough range the cutting beam
could cut through flesh. Sever a head
from a neck?"
"You'd have to be pretty
close."
"A last resort possibly,
but still better than nothing. I've also
been known to take a phaser camping to get a fire started, if the vamp's
clothes are flammable...?"
She laughed. "Anything that works?"
"Why not?" He made a few more adjustments to the
schematic he'd been working on since she'd told him about her run in with
Wharton. "But this is what I'm
interested in. We need two things. First, a delivery mechanism that will cut through
body armor."
She nodded. "Some kind of armor piercing
artillery."
"They used to call them
tank-killers. We don't need anything
that big, but you get the idea." He
walked around, showed her the small handheld weapon. "Secondly, we need fire. Fire that stays where we put it, that burns
and burns. Have you ever heard of
Napalm?"
She shook her head.
"Basically it was made
to keep a liquid incendiary agent burning for long periods where it originally
was placed instead of running off. If we
could make something like this, something that could be ignited by the initial
delivery charge, then the burn might be long enough for the fire to reach
critical mass."
"Which on a vampire does
not have to be that much." She
studied the designs. "Can we make
this?"
"We? No.
But Chekov's a bit bored these days.
And he's security, after all."
He grinned. "He's playing
around with the designs."
"Did you tell him
why?"
"I told him just
enough."
"Ah." Chris shook her head. "It's our best shot so far."
He nodded. "Unless I can learn to shoot firebolts
out of my fingers."
"How's that
coming?"
"It's not. I have another session with Weasel in the
morning." He realized he was
leaning over her, his hand on her shoulder, his face very close to hers. He slowly straightened up and walked around
the desk, putting it safely between them.
She grinned. "Don't run away on my account."
"Prudence
dictates--"
"Who the hell is
Prudence and how did she get involved in this?"
He laughed. "Speaking of which. You were pretty proprietary back there with
Carol."
She looked down, a slight flush
on her face. "I know. I'm sorry.
I mean, what if she had been someone you were interested in? I had no right to do that."
"Well, your instincts
were right. And I didn't
mind." He looked down. "I probably should mind, but I
didn't."
She leaned forward. "Maybe you don't mind because deep down
you think it's how it should be. I mean
us...together."
He looked away.
"I'm just saying."
"I know what you're
saying. It's not that simple."
"I think it
is." She held up her hand as he
started to respond. "But, I know
you don't. So I'll shut up now." She shot him a sweet, if disappointed, smile.
"You know if I
could..."
"I know." She stood up. "I've got a meeting I have to go
to. Thank you for coming by. I was...upset."
"I know. I felt it." He shot her a 'don't say a word' look. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Right." They walked out together, and he took his
time getting back to Command. His
afternoon loomed fairly open, which would give him more time to do boring,
mundane tasks. God knew it wasn't always
exciting sitting a boring shift on the ship.
But at least he'd been out in space, doing something other than voting
yea or nay on a funding issue or debating the merits of this or that personnel transfer.
His comm rang. He hit it absently, "Yes,
Commander?"
"There's a Lieutenant
Chekov here to see you, sir."
Kirk smiled. "Send him in."
"Hello, sir." Chekov smiled; he seemed pleased with himself.
"Well, Pavel, are you going
to tell me what you've done that's got you so happy, or are you going to just
keep it to yourself all afternoon? And
sit."
Chekov took a chair. "I wanted to show you this. I think it would work with a minimum of
chemical mixture needed. You did say you
want sustained burn in a single point of entry?"
Kirk nodded.
"This should work. My problem was trying to design a combination
that would keep the delivery mechanism a manageable size. For some of the mixtures, you'd need so much in
the chemical mix that the artillery would have to be shoulder rocket size. Not very inconspicuous and you can't carry
extra ammo."
"Gotcha." Kirk looked over the mixture. "How long will it take you to make
this?"
"Make it, sir? I thought you just wanted quick
designs?"
Kirk laughed. "I may have left out the manufacturing
part. Is it something you can do in your
spare time?"
Chekov nodded. "But I'm not sure I'm supposed to. Is this an order, sir?"
"No. I can't order you to do this. I just need a favor." He held his hand out for the padd. "Give me the designs. I'll find someone else to make it."
Chekov studied the padd in
his hand, then stuck it under his arm.
"That's all right, sir. It
will be a challenge. It's rare that I
get to practice with anything hands on."
He leaned forward. "I
presume discretion is critical?"
"I'm afraid so."
Chekov grinned. "Then I'll refrain from test firing it
on the parade ground."
Kirk laughed. "Good idea." He studied the young man. He seemed more confident, less in need of
proving himself. "How go the refits?"
Chekov smiled. "They go well. She's a beautiful ship, sir. You'll hardly recognize her."
Kirk nodded, tried not to let
his envy show. "You know Doctor
Chapel will be joining you?"
Chekov nodded. "I heard that. It will be just like old times." He seemed to realize what he'd said. "For the junior officers, I mean."
Kirk laughed. "I know what you meant, Pav. Don't worry." He waved him out. "I'm holding you up from your hands-on
time."
"Sir, I'll need to
requisition some supplies."
Kirk held his hand out for
the padd, authorized the expenses to his department's account. If Nogura asked him what he was doing, he'd
just tell him he was helping Chris. Let
him think that was one of the prices of Kirk's cooperation.
"Have you been up to see
her, Pav? The ship?"
Chekov nodded, smiling. "She's beautiful."
"She's always been
beautiful."
"Yes, sir." Chekov looked down, then back up. "Is it too late to get her back?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it
is." Kirk leaned back, patted the
arms of his desk chair. "This is my
chair now."
"Aye, sir." Chekov got up. "I'll get right on this."
Kirk smiled, nodded. He watched Chekov walk out. The man had his
whole life ahead of him. Years and years
left in space. Kirk envied him.
He forced himself to get back
to work. He was restless and found it
difficult to concentrate. He knew that
any kind of distraction would get in the way of the work he'd be doing with
Weasel, so he headed down to the gym. He
worked out for a while but couldn't muster much enthusiasm for any of his
favorite machines.
Bone tired, he finally gave
up and headed home. The walk to his
apartment seemed unusually long and he decided to skip dinner and fell into
bed.
For once, he didn't wake
before the alarm; the chirping of it jerked him awake and he struggled out of
bed. He still wasn't hungry, felt a bit
sick. He made coffee and drank it
quickly.
It didn't make him feel any
better. In fact, he felt worse. He stumbled into the shower, let the hot
water beat down on him.
He closed his eyes, leaned
against the wall of his shower and let the shower fall onto his lower
back. He flashed back to his
conversation with Carol, then to Chris, how close he'd been standing, how good
she felt next to him.
So many things in this world
that he couldn't have.
Why?
Carol would use her son to
get funding. She'd said it. Why did he have to be so honorable? Why shouldn't he use it too?
And Chris? He wanted her.
He wasn't sure he'd ever wanted a woman more. If he asked her, she'd bow out of the
Enterprise assignment. She'd be with
him. She loved him. Nogura could make it happen, and he'd give
her a good post, a plum assignment.
She'd be with him.
He'd be happy then. He wouldn't be alone.
He wouldn't be lonely. His son.
The woman he loved. He could have
them. It would be so easy.
He turned off the water,
stepped out of the shower, and reached for his towel.
He could have it all.
He stared down at his
hands. What was he thinking? His hands began to shake, and he leaned
against the wall.
What he wanted didn't
matter. He had to stay away from
David. Until Carol decided she could
share him on her own, not because of some stupid funding.
And Chris wasn't his. She would never be his.
Nausea overwhelmed him, and
he barely made it to the toilet in time to throw up over and over again.
He wanted--god help him, so
many things he wanted. All within his
reach now.
All still lost to him. Just because he could see them didn't mean he
could have them.
He glanced at his
chrono. Time to go. Long past.
How much time had he spent in the shower?
Feeling dizzy and weak, he
pulled on his clothes, left the apartment, and headed down the street. He felt dizzy and turned in place, then
turned again. He started walking again
then realized he was going the wrong direction--away, not toward, Weasel.
He stopped. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Don't you like the
scotch?" Nogura's words seemed to haunt him.
He threw up into some
bushes.
An early morning jogger
stopped. "Do you need help?"
Kirk waved him off. "I'll be fine."
The man shot him a look as if
Kirk was some drunk, some derelict. He
turned around and ran back the way he'd come.
Kirk closed his eyes. "Weasel.
Find Weasel." He didn't open
his eyes, just turned slowly until he felt a tug. He kept his eyes nearly closed as he set out
in the new direction, walked quickly, not looking up or around--afraid he'd get
himself turned around again. That
something was trying to keep him from finding Weasel.
Sweat pouring down his face,
he stumbled into the motel room that led to Weasel's workroom.
"About damn time you got
here, Mac." Weasel looked up from
where he was watching the trivid, his face set in a scowl. Then he hurried over. "Jim.
What the hell happened?"
"No...gu...ra." Kirk collapsed, felt Weasel catch him. "Ma...gic."
"No shit, my
friend." Weasel eased him onto the
bed.
Kirk was distantly aware of
Weasel opening the door that led downstairs, of being manhandled down the
stairs by the thinner man. As the
shields of the room began to close behind them, he started to feel better.
"Okay, let's see what
he's done to you." Weasel dropped
him into the one soft chair and began to mix up some herbs.
"You called me
Jim."
"Yeah. I know.
Don't make a big deal of it.
Everyone slips up." He
grinned at Kirk as he pressed the glass into his hands. "Drink up. It tastes like crap but it'll make you feel
better."
"What's your name?"
"No way, Mac." Weasel began to run his hands down Kirk's
arm, the same way Nogura had done. Not
touching him but still somehow affecting him.
"Please? I won't tell anyone what it is." Kirk shot him his best "I'm dying here"
face. In this case, he worried it might
be true. If not from whatever Nogura had
done to him, then from the god-awful grainy beverage he was trying to suck
down. The best he could do was a small
sip.
"Don't pull that on
me. I've seen it all." Weasel shook his head. "You're one lucky cuss. You know that?" He touched Kirk's forehead, his eyes closing
for a moment.
Kirk felt the hot, dizzy
feeling recede. "He poisoned
me?"
"Sort of. But only because you resisted." Weasel pulled a chair closer and sat watching
Kirk. "It was a combination of
spell and some kind of decoction. You'd
feel fine if you did what he wanted. The
more you resist, the worse you feel. Did
he give you anything to eat or drink?"
"Scotch. Tasted horrible. I didn't drink much more than a
sip." He smiled. "Good thing I didn't."
Weasel nodded. "It's not what saved you, though."
"No?"
"No. The Scotch was just to anchor the spell. The magic that was linked to it is far
stronger than whatever he put in the booze." He shook his head as Kirk took another sip of
the herbal mix. "Sips do you no
good with that. Finish it."
Kirk gagged it down and
handed the glass back. He was afraid
he'd throw up again, but a moment later he began to feel better. He leaned forward, resting his head on his
hands. "What kind of spell?"
"Influence and
desire. He make you some kind of offer recently?"
Kirk nodded. "My heart's desire. Or two out of three, anyway." Kirk laughed.
Would he have been able to resist if Nogura had thrown in the
Enterprise?
"He wasn't counting on
you being able to resist him."
Kirk nodded tiredly.
"I doubt he'll try this
kind of attack again. But he might go
more overt. Throw in the third thing, if
it's in his power. Is it?"
"Oh, yes." Kirk laughed, felt slightly giddy. "How come I could resist him?"
"Because you've got the
kind of power most sorcerers only dream of, even if you don't know how to use
it yet."
"I'm learning,"
Kirk said quickly.
"Yeah, Mac. Yeah you are." Weasel lifted his head, checked his forehead
again. "It also didn't hurt that you've
got a crapload of slayer energy inside you.
You want to explain that to me?"
"My slayer friend and I
did a little spell."
Weasel laughed. "A little spell? This is major tantric energy roaming up your
spine, bud. You must be horny as
hell. So must she." Weasel leaned in. "Next time release it."
"We can't do that."
Weasel rolled his eyes. "I mean the energy, you numbskull. Ground it.
Give it back to the Earth.
Haven't I taught you anything?"
He narrowed his eyes. "I've
never had a slayer that way, most of them are pretty leery of letting down that
much, letting someone in to touch the source of them." He began to smirk. "Was it good?"
"Oh my god,
yes." Kirk tried not to grin too widely.
"Now, I'm
jealous." He stood up. "Work is out. You need to rest for an hour at least."
"I didn't know the
Scotch was bad until I drank it, Weasel.
Shouldn't I have known?"
The other man sighed. "It was probably shielded. Your boy Nogura is one hell of a powerful
mage."
"But you would have
known?"
Weasel nodded. "Yeah, I would have. It’s not easy. Takes time.
You have to look deep. Look with
something primitive inside you that knows good and bad from feel and not from
being taught."
"I can learn to do
that?"
"You already know
how. You just don't know it yet." Weasel smiled. "You rest. I'll come wake you when it's time to
go."
"Weasel?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
The other man nodded. "Don't mention it." He headed up the stairs.
"Aren't you off
work?"
Weasel turned to look at
him. "Yeah. I'll just be upstairs."
Kirk could feel his eyes
closing. "Don't you ever leave the
motel?"
"Get some rest,
Jim."
It wasn't an answer. Kirk tried to say something else, but a
peaceful and softly welcoming blackness claimed him.
------------------------------
Christine walked through the
cemetery, sure that David was shadowing her.
She turned and scanned the bushes but there was no movement. Nothing to give him away. She wondered if her slayer senses would be
more helpful if she actually considered David a threat.
It was dangerous to think of
him as more friend than foe. Very
dangerous. Yet she was having trouble
thinking of him as anything else. He
could have killed her more than once. He
hadn't. Slayer existence sometimes came
down to logic that simple.
On the other hand, he would
have hurt Emma the other night if Lori hadn't intervened. That was easy logic too.
Lori. Something caught in Christine's stomach as
she thought of the pens. Such
horror.
She heard a sound from up
ahead and forced herself to pay attention.
She had horrors far more immediate to deal with.
Christine felt her senses
come alive, the hairs on the back of her neck springing up, the nerves in her
thighs trembling as she rose a bit on her toes, her stride becoming more feral,
less civilized. She was here to kill, to
slay. Sometimes it was very elemental. She was jagged, tearing death for things that
were already dead.
Two vampires waited for her
by a large crypt. They were big...and
old. These weren't David's fledglings.
"Slayer," one of
them said. His smile was not
pleasant.
They knew what she was. It was a relief.
She pulled out her stake,
touched her leg where another one was jammed into the side pocket.
"A slayer? Where?"
Another vampire stepped out from the inside.
And another. And another.
They wore identical jackets.
Black leather with a silver half moon design sewn on the arm.
Great. A vampire gang.
A female vampire jumped down
from the roof. "She doesn't look
like so much, guys. I say we kill her
quick and have her as an appetizer."
The woman laughed at her, taunted her with a sad face. "Slayer all alone."
"Slayer 'is' all alone,
you stupid bint. It's called a verb." David sounded more amused than annoyed. He moved next to Christine. "Hello, love. Sloppy letting me get that close to you."
She glared at him. "I knew you were back there."
"You didn't know that
was me just then. I could have been
anything."
"You brought your
watcher?" One of the male vampires asked.
"Ooh. Scary."
David's face changed. "Ooh.
Scarier." He grinned at
Christine. "These aren't mine, by
the way."
"Yeah, I figured that
out. Yours don't usually have time to
get matching ensembles."
He laughed. "No.
They don't." He pulled out a
stake. "Shall we?"
"What? No fancy weapon for this?"
He shook his head. "That's your job, my dear. To think of how you'll stop me." He pulled out another stake. "But I did bring extra of the nice pointy
sticks." He let them fly, overhand
like daggers. They both hit hard, dead
center of their targets and two vampires burst into dust.
Christine was impressed. "Nice." She rushed the female, falling easily as the
vampire kicked out. Christine's legs whipped
out in a simple scissor kick, catching the vampire as she came down from her
own missed kick. The female hit the
ground and rolled--right into David's waiting stake.
"Nice team we make,
Christine."
"Uh huh." She met one of the remaining vampires,
blocking his punch, then letting him get a solid hit in. She fell back and he followed her--obviously
thinking she was more stunned than she was.
She stumbled once, then again and he moved toward her, defenses down,
grinning as if tasting her blood already.
"Idiot," she said,
as she slammed the stake home and moved to the last one.
"No, dear. He's mine." David kicked the vampire away from her. He seemed to be toying with the bigger
vampire, letting him get close enough to almost land a blow before kicking him
away again. "Have you asked
yourself why all these old ones are suddenly showing up in San Francisco?"
She stuck her stake in her
pocket and sat down on a nearby bench.
"Hadn't really thought about it."
"Well, think about it,
Christine. Why do vampires show up
anywhere?" He let his face go back
to human as he punched the roaring vampire away.
"Good reviews on the
vampire travel network?"
He shot her a look.
"Fine, David. I give up.
Why do they show up anywhere?"
He seemed surprised that she
asked, finally dropped his guard and let the vampire rush in close and try to
grab him. The only thing the vampire got
his hands on was the stake--after David had jammed it into his chest. David was already walking away when he
exploded into dust. "You really
don't know?"
"Don't know what?"
He sat down at the far end of
the bench. "They come for the
slayers."
"Plural?"
He nodded.
"I don't
understand."
"What kind of
reinforcements do you think Silver brought with him? Slayers.
Lots of them. Vampires sense them
and go crazy. It's an instinctive thing,
to go where the slayer is. A death wish
of sorts."
"The ancient
dance," Christine said softly. It
was what Spike had always called it. She
looked at David. "Silver brought
slayers?"
"Lots of them. Haven't you seen them?"
She shook her head. "I don't believe you."
He shrugged, and looked up,
staring at the night sky. "Did your
friend tell you about the Cruciamentum?"
"Yes," she said,
forcing her voice to stay even.
David looked over at her,
surprise on his face. "Did
he?" Then he smiled. "He's smarter than I thought."
"He and I don't have
secrets."
David made an amused
face. "Give it time. You will." He leaned closer. "We were talking about the sewers,
Christine."
She jerked up, off the bench
and away from him. He followed her,
moving in close.
"Don't want to talk
about it, eh?"
"Don't need to. I talked to him about it."
"He wasn't there,
Christine. I was. Barely older than you were. Horrified by what I saw them do to you."
She made a face, backed off a
bit. This time he didn't follow her.
"You couldn't have been
that horrified, David. You stayed a
watcher until you were turned."
"True. I sublimated that horror. Became something worse in many ways. At
least, until Laura--" He turned and
walked back to the bench. "How many
girls have they murdered that way, Christine?
Hundreds? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands?"
She looked down. "It only happens at eighteen?"
"Yes."
She met his gaze, sighed. "How many of us make it to that?"
His smile was sad. "Not many."
She wrapped her arms around
her. "I don't understand why you
still care about the slayers, but I believe you do. I believe that some of what you say makes
sense. I'll help you, and so will
Jim. Just stop killing the
watchers."
"Why? Because they're innocents?"
"Because I'll have to
stop you if you don't. And I don't want
to hurt you." She took a step
toward him. "Let me help you."
His face was amused. "By all means. Come help me.
And get ready for eternal life while you're at it. If you come too close, I'll take it as an
invitation for biting, Christine."
She stopped.
He stood. "Soon, you'll have to choose between
us. Your handlers--the ones who left you
in that sewer. The ones who let you
fight alone out here while they huddle inside their houses. Or me.
Your ancient enemy. The one who
fights beside you."
"Emma fights beside me."
"I don't see her
fighting now."
"You think I'd bring her
out here if I thought you were anywhere around?"
"She's your
watcher. She should want to be
here. Or doesn't she care that much
about you? You're not her slayer, after
all. Not really."
Christine smiled gently. "Like you weren't really Laura's?"
David stood. "I cared for Laura. And I care for you." He turned around. "Where is Emma in all this?" He was shaking his head as he walked away.
Christine watched him
go. She stood on the path until he was
out of sight then turned and headed for her watcher's townhouse.
She rang the chime but no one
answered, so she pushed herself up onto the low brick wall and waited. She felt very exposed sitting in the open,
but she was not going to run and hide just because she was a little
jittery. She was the slayer--or one of
them, at least. What had it been like
during the old days, before Buffy, when there had only been one? To be "the" slayer? How terribly isolated had those girls been. How very frightened.
A flitter eased its way down
the street, stopping in front of Emma's.
Christine pushed herself off the wall as Emma got out.
"Christine?"
Christine saw her watcher
touch her coat pocket. Did she think she
was in danger? Did she really not trust
her? Christine tensed.
Emma shot her an odd look at
she pulled out her keycard and passed her, climbing the stairs slowly. "Dear, you seem awfully
jumpy." She opened the door and
stared down at Christine.
"I want to know about
the Cruciamentum."
Emma sighed. "David told you?"
"Actually he told Jim
and Jim told me. Why didn't you tell
me? Why didn't Roger tell me when I was
eighteen and scared out of my mind?"
Christine shook her head.
"Funny how you've never seemed very eager to examine why I don't
patrol in the sewers."
"I'm perfectly aware of
why you don't. And I'd say fear of the
sewers is a valid response to nearly having died in one." Emma sighed again. "Come in."
When Christine didn't move,
Emma started to shut the door.
"Did you ever watch
one? Did you ever watch a slayer
die?"
"Yes. Once.
And I'm on record as condemning it.
It's a barbaric practice. I'm not
the only one who feels that way."
Christine could feel tears
stinging her eyes. She looked away.
"Christine. Please come in."
"I was all alone down
there. And I thought I was sick. But there was this terrible vampire that had
to be stopped, so I went. Because that's
what slayers do. They go. They fight." She looked up at Emma. "They die."
"I know." Emma walked down the stairs, took Christine's
arm and steered her into the house. "I
know." She shut the door gently and
turned around slowly. "Did he hold
you? Korby? Did he comfort you? Tell you that you did well?"
"Oh yes. He did all that." Christine wiped at her tears. "He did everything but tell me the
truth." She sighed, the sound was
ragged. "I needed a vampire to tell
me that. Why is that, Emma? Why does he seem to be on the side of the
angels on this one?"
"Because he is. It's what drew us together, David and
me. One of the things. That we abhorred this practice. That we were working to stop it. And then he was killed. And his voice lost authority. We're still trying, those of us who hate
it. Each year there are fewer and fewer
watchers willing to put their slayers through this. I swear that's the truth. We'll stop it, eventually. But change takes time, Christine. You know that."
Christine closed her
eyes. Felt Emma's hand on her arm,
urging her upstairs. She let herself be
moved, fell onto the couch, boneless, nerveless. Tired.
Confused.
"Are there other slayers
here? Did Kevin bring others?"
"What do you mean?"
Christine sat up, her voice
harsh. "Other slayers. How hard is that to understand? Instead of me. Because you don't trust me."
"No. No, there are no other slayers here. Why would we bring them? This is watcher business." She sat down next to Christine. "Did David tell you that?"
Christine nodded. "I told him I didn't believe him."
"But you did." Emma leaned her head back, looked over at
her. "You seem to believe a great deal
that he tells you. I find myself
thankful that you're so interested in the admiral or I might be afraid you'd
fall for David and all his truths."
"That's not very
nice."
"Perhaps not. But it is what I think. You did let him bite you."
"That was different."
"Yes. You were having some sort of difficulty with
Jim, weren't you?"
Christine closed her
eyes. "You're too good at this
Emma. You'll twist anything I say."
"I'm going to ask you
something. And I want you to think about
it, not dash off some smart answer."
"Ask away."
Emma turned, curling her legs
up on the couch so that she was facing Christine. "When did it become your first
inclination to reach out--to connect--with your gonads?"
Christine laughed. "Flattering."
"Think about it. And I'm not talking about David anymore. I mean in general."
Christine took a deep
breath. "I'm not having sex with
Jim."
"I know you're not. It's possibly the first time you haven't
jumped into bed with a man."
"Not my choice,"
Christine muttered.
Emma laughed. "I believe that too."
"You think I'm a bad
person?"
"I didn't say that. But Spike.
Spock." She touched
Christine's arm. "Roger. Your watcher, Christine? Why?
He was a father figure."
Christine pulled away. "Spock and Spike weren't."
"No. But all three have something in common. You just haven't seen what it is yet."
"Good in bed?"
"Christine. There may not be many more of these sessions
in our future if we don't stop David."
At Christine's look, she shook her head.
"I'm a realist. Work with me
now."
"I told you I won't let
him hurt you."
"Work with me. What do they all have in common?"
Christine looked down. The room was silent and she expected Emma to
say something, to break the impasse. But
her watcher sat silently, her head pressed against the cushion as she watched
Christine. She smiled gently at her,
then closed her eyes, as if she could wait all night for Christine's answer.
"They saved me."
Emma opened her eyes and
smiled. "And in return, you gave
them...what?"
Christine looked away.
"Christine? It's not a bad thing. It's just truth. Truth that I don't think you've ever looked
at."
"I gave them my
body." She turned and stared at
Emma. "You're the expert. You tell me why that is."
Emma smiled again. "I think that after Marcus died, you
shut down. Buried yourself deep. You set out on revenge, became a wild
thing. Killed them all. Right?"
Christine nodded.
"A true child of Faith's
line." Emma shook her head. "I know the mystique that slayer holds
for you. And I know why. She protected herself the same way by all
accounts. Gave her body, but not her
heart. Not until she learned how to
love. And grew up."
"You think I need to
grow up?"
"What do you
think?"
Christine shrugged and they
fell into another long silence. Then she
looked over at Emma. "'I've seen
Faith in my dreams. But not lately. She doesn't come anymore."
"Maybe you don't need
her to come anymore." Emma shook
her head. "After Marcus, you shut
down and the only thing you could give was your body. And you gave it with such abandon that you
fooled your partners."
"Are you saying I didn't
love them?"
"I'm saying you didn't
know what love was. You never got the
chance to find out what it might be with Marcus. And you never let yourself know what it might
be with the others. You were too busy
protecting yourself."
"That's bullshit. I loved Spock." Christine pushed herself off the couch. "I bonded with him."
"I know." Emma didn't move, just waited as Christine
paced. "And you ran away from
him. Not when you thought he had died,
but when you knew he hadn't. You ran
away from his love, Christine."
"You can't figure out
everything like that. There isn't an
easy answer for everything."
"Fine, then tell me why
haven't you slept with Jim."
"He doesn't want
to."
"Yes he does." Emma grinned at her.
"He doesn't think we
should."
"So you're his...?"
"Friend. I'm his friend."
Emma nodded. "I see.
Would the old Christine have known how to do that? How to just be a friend?" Emma closed
her eyes. "Or would she have tried
to seduce him by now--maybe even succeeded?"
"You don't make me sound
very nice?"
Emma laughed. "At times, you aren't very nice. None of us are." She patted the couch, waited for Christine to
sit back down before she asked, "Do you like who you are?"
Christine thought about
that. "Yes."
Emma nodded. "I like who you are too." She smiled gently. "Very much."
Christine smiled sadly. "I wish I'd known you when I was
eighteen."
"I was just about that
age too then."
Christine nodded. Funny how much older Emma seemed. Full of the wisdom that was usually won over
time, over years. "I'm glad you
pissed off Kevin." She
grinned. "I'm glad you had to come
help me."
Emma took her hand. "I never have to do anything. Especially stay here. Believe me, part of me would like to run very
fast and very far until David is neutralized.
But I can't." She squeezed her
hand hard. "I stay for you."
"Thank you." Christine squeezed back. "Thank you for staying."
"It's going to get very
bad soon. He won't wait forever. You know that. He's been playing with us all. Me most of all by his wooing of you. He wants me to think you might turn on
me."
"He knows I
won't."
"Not yet. But once he is sure you can't be won, he'll
move. And then it will be war. And you'll have to choose sides."
"No I won't. I'm already on your side. You know that. Or you should know that by now. Why don't you know that? Let's examine that. Maybe look at your sex life?" Christine grinned to take out a little of the
sting in the words.
Emma smiled. "That vampire trying to kill me was my
sex life."
"Oh yeah." Christine shook her head. "Well, let's not go there, then."
"Good idea."
Christine yawned. "I have to get home."
Emma let go of her hand. "You could stay here."
"Do you want me
to?"
"Oh, I'm not
afraid. I just mean if you're
tired. I have extra rooms."
Christine shook her
head. "I'm all right. The walk will do me good. I have lots to think about now." She grinned ruefully. "Therapists."
Emma laughed, started to get
up but Christine waved her back down.
"I can see myself
out." Impulsively, she leaned down
and kissed Emma's cheek. "You do
good work, you know."
Emma shook her head. "It helps to have such a good
patient." She smiled, closed her
eyes. "Lock the door on your way
out?"
"They can't come in
unless you invite them in," Christine said as she walked down the stairs.
"Lock it anyway."
"Sure thing,
boss." She closed the door behind
her, made sure it had locked before heading home. She took a deep breath of the night air. Her element.
The night. It would be strange to
be on the ship again. No night. No patrol.
No killing.
Strange but good.
She passed a man on a bench. "You must have been bored?"
David just laughed as she
walked away.
She turned, continued to walk
as she talked. "I'll choose her,
David. Go away and let this die
now."
"No." He jumped up.
"Can I walk you home?"
"No."
"There may be other
vampires?"
"No."
"Fine," he said as she
walked quickly away.
But she could tell he was
behind her, all the way to her place. A
menacing presence, protecting her from the other vampires. It was both comforting and deeply disturbing.
FIN